RISH  ORATORS 

A  HISTORY  OF       • 

-IRELANiyS  FIGHT   m» 
FOR  FREEDOM 


CLAUDE  G. 
B  OW^EFtS 


-i  I    / 


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THE  IRISH  ORATORS 


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C     o 


THE 
IRISH   ORATORS 

A  History  of 
IRELAND'S  FIGHT  FOR  FREEDOM 

By  CLAUDE  G.  BOWERS    9 


Illustrated  With  Photographs 


"  Ireland  is  a  land  worth  fighting  for. ^* 

— Thomas  Francis  Meagher. 


ftdSTON  ODUEQE  LIBRARY 

^  QNesTTiirr  miu,  hw^ss. 

INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  1916 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


133231 


■<  ^     -■  fti»«  I  ^  •*?*.•' 


FOREWORD 

It  would  have  been  unfortunate  if 
the  author  of  this  volume  had  not  placed 
it  in  the  hands  of  the  public.  His  de- 
mand and  success  as  a  public  speaker 
upon  Irish  topics  led  him  to  a  deep 
study  of  the  history  of  that  glorious 
nation,  and  the  deeper  he  studied  the 
more  fascinated  he  became.   His  work  is 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  his  ov/n  re^ 
searches  and  in  turn  fascinates  the 
reader. 

Among  the  great  men  who  pass  in  re- 
view, Daniel  O'Connell  is  given  high 
place  and  justly  go,  for  he  was  a  most 
worthy  leader  of  the  people  for  over  a 
generation.   His  preeminence  recalls 
the  estimation  of  him  held  by  the  Count 
de  Montalembert  who  said  that  O'Connell 
was  the  finest  orator  whom  he  had  lis- 
tened to,  or  whose  works  he  had  read. 

The  reader  will  find  this  valuable 
contribution  to  the  story  of  Ireland's 
greatness  impartial,  instructive  and 
interesting  and  of  such  appeal'  that  he 
will  not  be  satisfied  until  he  reads  to 
the  end. 


INTRODUCTION 

The  history  of  Ireland  is  one  of  romance  and  trag- 
edy. To  trace  the  inspiring  story  of  her  struggle  for 
nationality  from  the  beginning  of  the  great  parliamen- 
tary battle  in  the  Dublin  parliament  to  the  present 
time,  letting  her  interpret  her  own  aspirations  and 
voice  her  own  protest  through  her  chosen  tribunes, 
has  been  an  absorbing  task.  Deprived  of  arms  by  her 
oppressors,  she  has  fought  her  fight  with  brains.  Her 
challenge  to  the  justice  of  the  world  has  been  made  by 
voice  and  pen.  Thus  her  orators  have  been  her  lead- 
ers— the  interpreters  of  her  aspirations — and  if,  at 
times,  the  spirit  of  militancy  has  been  evoked,  it  is 
worthy  of  notice  that  the  greater  portion  of  her  mili- 
tants have  been  as  brilliant  on  the  platform  as  they 
have  been  brave  upon  the  field. 

The  battle  for  Irish  rights  began  in  a  mild  and  in- 
effective manner  under  the  leadership  of  Doctor  Lucas, 
the  writer,  and  Anthony  Malone,  the  orator,  a  few 
years  before  Henry  Flood  entered  the  Irish  house  of 
commons  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
but  of  this  we  know  little  beyond  what  tradition  has 
bequeathed  us.  It  was  with  the  entrance  of  Flood  that 
the  vigorous  challenge  of  the  English  pretension  to  the 
right  of  domineering  over  Ireland  began.  He  was  the 
first  of  the  tribunes.  With  the  single  exception  of  a 
few  dark  years  during  the  fifth  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  tribunate  of  the  Irish  people  has 


INTRODUCTION 

been  filled  by  an  orator  and  leader  of  exceptional  bril- 
liance, in  whose  activities  centered  the  hope  of  the 
race. 

Flood,  Grattan,  Plunkett,  O'Connell,  Meagher,  Butt, 
Parnell — the  careers  of  these  men,  in  the  ensemble, 
constitute  the  history  of  Ireland  from  the  vice-royalty 
of  the  insufferable  Townsend  to  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century.  Two  splendid  and  inspiring  men  of 
genius  who  never  aspired  to  political  leadership  but 
whose  work  for  Ireland  constitutes  an  essential  part 
of  any  history  of  the  struggle  for  nationality  were 
John  Philpot  Curran  and  Robert  Emmet.  The  one 
wrought  as  brilliantly  in  the  courts,  and  the  other  as 
inspiringly  upon  the  scaffold,  as  O'Connell  on  the  hust- 
ings, or  Parnell  in  the  halls  of  Westminster. 

Thus  I  have  tried  to  set  forth  through  the  studies 
of  these  nine  men  all  the  essential  facts  in  the  history 
of  Ireland  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  to  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century. 

In  treating  of  the  political  history  of  Ireland 
through  studies  of  the  great  orators  w^ho  have  been 
her  leaders  I  have  had  another  object  in  view — to  em- 
phasize the  genius  of  the  Irish  race.  In  the  long  list 
there  is  not  one  who  does  not  tower  above  the  level 
of  the  commonplace.  Scarcely  one  there  is  whose  elo- 
quence would  not  have  imparted  luster  and  distinction 
to  any  race,  or  any  period,  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Even  the  militant  band  of  patriots  w^ho  have  ques- 
tioned the  feasibility  of  constitutional  agitation  can 
consistently  respect  these  men  who  fought  the  patriots' 
battle  with  voice  and  pen — for  they,  too,  stood  in  con- 
stant danger  of  physical  violence. 


INTRODUCTION 

Thus,  during  the  shameless  period  of  Castlereagh's 
desperate  enterprise,  Grattan  lived  within  the  shadow 
of  the  assassin's  dagger;  and  Plunkett,  confronted  by 
the  dueling  dub  of  the  mercenaries,  organized  for  the 
assassination  of  the  patriots,  met  the  danger  with  a 
bold  challenge  to  their  cowardice. 

Thus  Cur  ran  was  in  constant  jeopardy  of  his  life 
and  liberty  while  defending  the  patriots  of  '98. 

Thus  Emmet  immolated  his  noble  life  upon  the  scaf- 
fold and  rests  in  an  unmarked  and  an  unknown  grave. 

Thus  O'Connell,  often  marked  for  murder,  fed  on 
prison  fare. 

Thus  Meagher  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged,  drawn 
and  quartered. 

Thus  Parnell  was  thrown  like  a  felon  into  the 
gloomy  confines  of  Kilmainham  prison. 

These  tribunes  of  Erin  were  not  fair  weather  patri- 
ots or  men  of  idle  words.  They  faced  throughout  their 
lives  the  storms  of  hate,  and  backed  their  words  with 
their  lives. 

Without  exception,  they  were  men  of  fascination, 
magnetism  and  ineffable  charm — fit  characters  for  a 
canvas  or  a  romance. 

They  were  great,  not  alone  because  of  the  Cause 
they  stood  for,  but  because  nature  miolded  them  from 
superior  clay.  Not  one  of  them  was  a  mere  method- 
ical plodder,  rising  to  prestige  and  power  by  cunning 
or  through  the  laborious  cultivation  of  ordinary  tal- 
ents.   They  all  had  the  divine  spark. 


INTRODUCTION 

Flood  and  Grattan,  playing  Shakespearian  roles  in 
the  charming  country  houses  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury;— Curran,  captivating  the  drawing-rooms  and  en- 
trancing the  cleverest  men  in  Eiu-ope  by  his  social 
grace  and  conversational  brilliance  at  his  table  at  The 
Priory; — Q'Coraiell,  in  patriarchal  simplicity  joining 
in  the  festivities  of  his  tenants  on  the  lawn  at  Darry- 
nane; — Sheil  shivering  in  the  dressing-room  of  Drury 
Lane  awaiting  the  verdict  of  the  monster.  The  Public, 
on  his  latest  comedy; — ^leagher,  amid  the  shot  and 
shell  of  Fredericksburg: — Butt,  writing  charming  es- 
says and  fascinating  the  gay  denizens  of  the  Bohemia 
of  London  while  fleeing  the  debt  collector; — Pamell, 
riding  to  hounds  ar?d  unlimbering  among  the  boon 
companions   £t   -  -nnagh,   and  trembling,   boy- 

wise,  be:  -e  z'r/z  *   -"perstition — each  and  all 

of  them  -   :-t  '^~-  1.  virile,  subject  to  lovable 

weal"  t  -  t  -  ' .  r  ^  :  :  :  '  >mpian  crown  of  gen- 
ius. S  I--::  -r  '  :  ^r  n:iere  men,  that  it 
were  i.  ;  v  : :  ;:^  -;:  :';^.;:  v  ^  :r::y  as  steel  engrav- 
ings, or  to  hide  their  rare  per  5  r  i  :  t  s  in  their  political 
activities. 

These  men  are  to  Ireland  all  that  Plutarch's  men 
were  to  Greece  and  Rome.    Their  eloquence  and  gen- 
ius ha- 1  5t~-ed  through  more  than  a  century  to  Hft 
"l^-'-*- '  :*-:r^.  the  valley  of  her  Gethsemane  to  illumi- 
.5..:-  v.here  ail  the  world  can  see  and  under- 

-'^'^'  C.  G.  B. 


CONTEXTS 

Chapter  I.  Hexry  Flood    ..........     Page  1 

I 

Flood's  parentage — Birth— Fashionable  dissipation  at  Trinity 
— At  Oxford — At  the  Temple — Appearance  in  early _manhood — 
Enters  Irish  parliament — Plight  of  parliament  in  1759 — Its  sub- 
serviency to  England — Its  corruption — Flood  attacks  corrupt 
practises — The  Undertakers — Flood  organizes  an  Opposition — 
He  creates  a  potential  public  opinion — Marriage — Life  at  Farm- 
ley — Theatricals. 

n 

Marquis  of  Tox\Tisend,  viceroy — His  character  and  career — His 
plan  to  increase  the  army  and  l:mit  life  of  parliament — Opposi- 
tion of  the  aristocratic  part>' — The  Limitation  bill — Why  Flood 
supported  it — The  Augmentation  bill — Aristocratic  part^-  accepts 
Flood's  leadership  of  the  opposition — Flood's  relation  to  tlie  fac- 
tions— Townsend  dissolves  parliament — Resorts  to  desperate 
measures  in  the  election — Tries  intimidation — The  Money  bill — 
Flood  leads  fight  against  it — Defeat  of  the  bill — Townsend  pro- 
rogues parliament — Public  opinion  aroused — Flood  organizes 
public  opinion  against  Townsend — Flood  turns  pamphleteer — 
Townsend  retorts  with  wholesale  corruption — Flood  attacks 
Townsend  in  philippic — Attack  demoralizes  the  Castle  minions — 
Flood  leads  another  successful  fight  against  the  Money  bill — 
Becomes  a  popular  idol — Lionized  in  London. 

Ill 

Lord  Harcourt.  viceroy— Character  and  career— He  cultivates 
Flood — Flood  wavers — He  accepts  office — Secret  state  papers  ex- 
pose his  weakness — Harcourt's  secret  report  on  Flood — Harcourt's 
letters  to  Lord  North  about  him — The  unfortunate  alphabetical 
list — Flood  loses  popularity — His  unpopularity-  capitalized  by 
Harcourt — Flood's  explanation — Harcourt  succeeded  by  the  Earl 
of  Buckinghamshire — Flood's  power  vanishes — His  onnti  defense 
of  tliis  period. 

IV 

Patriot  part>-  declines  his  leadership — Jealousy  of  opponents — 
Grattan's  Declaration  of  Rights — Flood  demands  simple  repeal 
— Flood's  position  popularizes  him  witli  the  Volunteers — He  be- 


CONTENTS-^Continued 

comes  leader  of  the  radicals — His   great   speech — Triumph   of 
simple  repeal — Flood's  famous  quarrel  with  Grattan. 


Flood  becomes  spokesman  of  the  Volunteers — Leads  their 
fight  against  "fensible  regiments" — Arouses  the  people  to  fever 
heat — Volunteers'  National  Convention  in  Dublin — Its  clash  with 
parliament  —  Revolutionary  conditions  —  Convention  formulates 
parHamentary  Reform  bill — Flood  presents  it  to  parHament — 
Scene  in  the  house — Flood's  eloquent  appeal — Bitter  fight  against 
it — Its  defeat — Is  reintroduced  in  the  next  session — Gets  popular 
support — Flood's  second  plea — Defeated  again— Flood's  motives 
i— The  vindication  of  time. 

VI 

Flood  enters  English  parliament — His  status  at  Saint  Stephens 
i— Retirement  and  death — His  character. 

VII 

Difficulties  in  Judging  his  fame  as  an  orator — Physical  advan- 
tages— Theatrical  manner — Dramatic  sense — Chatham-like  au- 
dacity— Introduces  rhetorical  eloquence  in  Irish  parliament—^ 
Grattan's  criticism — Argumentative  power — His  flashes  of  fancy 
■ — His  status. 


Chapter  II.  Henry  Grattan Page  45 


Grattan's  father — At  Dublin  University— His  unhappy  youth 
— Studies — At  the  Temple — Influences  of  Chatham's  eloquence — 
Oratorical  studies — Returns  to  Ireland— Country  house  theatri- 
cals— Admission  to  the  bar — "The  Society  of  Granby  Row" — ■ 
Early  companions. 

n 

Enters  Irish  parliament — The  embargo  on  Irish  exports — In- 
dustrial depression — Expenses  of  government  increased — Grattan 
opens  fight  on  the  embargo — His  first  speech — Effect  on  Fox- 
Attacks  the  pension  list  and  salary  grab — Increasing  poverty  in 
Ireland — Lord  North's  jest — Government  bankrupt — The  rise  of 
the  Volunteers — Grattan  begins  fight  on  commercial  restrictions 
— Forces  through  an  amendment  to  the  address  on  the  subject — 
Its  presentation  to  the  Castle — The  king's  evasion — Threat  of  the 
Volunteers — Grattan  defends  them — The  people's  fury — Grattan 
leads  fight  to  withhold  the  next  taxes — American  revolution  tac- 
tics— Free  trade  won — Grattan  pushes  his  advantage — Announces 
he  will  introduce  a  Bill  of  Rights — The  timid  hold  back— Burke's 


COl^TENTS— Continued 

iprotcst— Grattan's  precarious  situation— He  moves  the  Declara- 
tion of  Rights— His  stirring  speech— Resolution  seconded  by 
Castlereagh's  father— Lord  Clare's  abuse— Flood  urges  postpone- 
ment— Parliamentary  device  saves  it  from  defeat— England  fol- 
lows with  duty  on  raw  sugar— The  people  aroused— The  Mutiny 
bill— Grattan  attacks  it— His  speech— The  people  organize— Vol- 
unteers become  a  national  institution— Military  spirit  grows— 
People  turn  to  parliament — Volunteers'  Convention  demands  the 
Declaration  of  Rights— Grattan  again  advocates  the  declaration-^ 
His  speech— Attempts  to  deter  him— The  English  minister  intimi- 
dated— Grattan  keeps  open  house — He  again  moves  the  Declara- 
tion— His  speech— The  victory. 

Ill 

England's  duplicity— Pitt's  commercial  propositions— Grattan 
leads  fight  on  them— His  speech — Ministry  turns  to  the  corrup- 
tion of  parliament — The  government's  pension  list — Grattan  at- 
tacks it— He  attacks  the  Navigation  Act. 

IV 

He  leads  the  fight  for  the  reform  of  the  tithe  evils — The 
misery  they  entailed — His  speech  demanding  an  inquiry — The 
regency  controversy — Grattan  leads  Irish  to  support  the  prince 
— ^Incurs  hatred  of  Pitt  and  Clare. 


Grattan  forces  concessions  to  Catholics — His  emancipation 
speech — The  FitzwilHam  incident — Treachery  of  Pitt — Fitzwill- 
iam  recalled — Dublin  in  mourning. 

VI 

England  determines  to  rule  by  corruption — Grattan  begins 
fight  on  the  system — His  philippic — Government  curtails  visitors' 
space  in  house  of  commons — Grattan  continues  his  philippics- 
Charges  corruption  in  the  house — Government  refuses  inquiry 
into  the  charge — Grattan  makes  tremendous  attack  on  ministers — 
He  begins  fight  for  parliamentary  reform — The  government 
passes  a  mutiny  act — Also  notorious  indemnity  act — It  suspends 
writ  of  habeas  corpus — General  Lake  tries  to  disarm  the  Irish— 
Grattan's  protest — Rise  of  the  United  Irishmen — Grattan  retires 
from  parliament. 

VII 

Grattan  physically  broken — Attempts  to  trap  him — Ruffians 
terrorize  Mrs.  Grattan — Grattan  threatened  with  assassination — • 
Ordered  by  physicians  to  Isle  of  Wight — Urged  to  return  to  par- 
liament to  fight  the  union — He  consents — First   debate  on  the 


CONTENTS— Con^mw^c? 

tinion-T-Grattan's  dramatic  reappearance — His  physical  weakness 
— His  protest — He  challenges  the  lord  lieutenant's  message — Re-^ 
plies  to  Corry's  defense  of  the  union — Duel  with  Corry — Second 
debate  on  the  union — Grattan's  final  protest — The  union  consum- 
mated— Crushing  effect  on  Grattan. 

VIII 

Enters  English  house  of  commons — Works  for  Catholic  eman- 
cipation— His  last  speech — Health  fails — Retires  to  Tinnehinch — ■< 
Determines  to  return  to  London  for  last  effort — Forbidden  by 
physicians — Painful  journey  to  London — Death. 

IX 

Grattan  at  home — Tinnehinch — His  associates — In  society — 
Love  of  the  country — Love  of  music — As  a  conversationalist — 
Love  of  the  theater — Fondness  for  his  friends. 


As  an  orator — Physical  disadvantages — His  art — Method  of 
preparing  speeches — Partiality  for  the  epigram — His  imagery—-? 
Power  of  condensation — His  rhetorical  sentences — Power  of  de- 
nunciation— Attack  on  Flood — Defense  of  Doctor  Kirwin — Trib- 
ute to  Charlemont — Felicity  of  characterization — Illustrations — 
His  perorations — His  status. 

Chapter  IH.  John  Philpot  Curran Page  127 


Parents  of  Curran — His  boyhood  at  Newmarket — At  Trinity 
— At  the  Middle  Temple — Influence  of  London — His  life  there 
— His  poverty — His  oratorical  studies. 

II 

Returns  to  Dublin — Enters  parliament — Supports  the  Volun- 
teers— Duel  with  Lord  Clare — He  assails  corruption — Supports 
parliamentary  reform — Retires  from  parliament — Reasons  he 
gave  Phillips  in  later  life. 

Ill 

Curran  becomes  the  advocate  of  Ireland — The  anarchy  and 
corruption  of  the  courts — He  defends  Rowan — Scenes  in  the 
court  room — Military  display — His  speech — Demonstration  of  the 
spectators — Carried  home  by  the  crowd— Attempt  of  the  Castle 
to  divorce  Curran  from  the  patriots— Defends  Jackson— Court 
lets  down  the  bars  for  informers— Defends  Finnerty— The  case 
of   Orr— He  declares  that  jury  is  packed-^His   speech— "The 


CONTENTS— Continued 

state  of  Ireland" — Defense  of  Finney — O'Brien,  the  informer— 
Curran's  denunciation  of  O'Brien — Acquits  Finney — Rebellion  of 
'98 — Curran  becomes  the  man  of  the  hour— He  defends  the 
Sheares  brothers — Scenes  in  court — Brutality  of  the  court — Cur- 
ran's speech — He  defends  McCann — Reynolds,  the  informer — 
Curran's  speech  suppressed — Defends  Byrne — Reynolds  again — 
Defends  Bond — Attempt  to  intimidate  Curran  by  soldiery— "You 
may  assassinate,  you  shall  not  intimidate  me" — Denunciation  of 
Reynolds — Curran  threatened  with  assassination — Is  followed  by 
hired  ruffians — Government  fears  to  arrest  him — Effect  of  state 
trials  on  his  spirits — Attempt  to  save  Wolfe  Tone — Case  of  Her- 
vey  vs.  Sirr — Curran's  speech  shocks  English  by  revelations^ 
Edinburgh  Review's  admission — He  defends  Justice  Johnson — 
Again  shocks  England — Appointed  master  of  the  rolls. 

IV 

Curran's  social  genius — "Monks  of  the  Screw" — His  home, 
The  Priory — His  melancholy — Social  triumphs  in  London — By- 
ron's tribute  to  Curran's  genius — Curran  and  Sheridan — Curran 
and  Erskine — Curran's  opinion  of  Fox,  Sheridan  and  Doctor 
Johnson — Last  years — Stricken  at  Tom  Moore's  table — Death. 


His  wonderful  eloquence — Publication  of  his  speeches — Ex- 
planation of  their  exaggerations — "Greatest  orator  produced  by 
the  British  Isles" — Physical  disadvantages — His  eyes  and  voice 
— Power  over  the  emotions — His  vocabulary — Manner  of  prepar- 
ing speeches — His  notes  for  the  Rowan  speech — His  inspirational 
qualities — His  pathetic  description  of  the  fate  of  Orr — His  ap- 
peal to  Lord  Avonmore — His  humor — His  gift  of  satire — His 
ridicule  of  Doctor  Duigenan — His  word  picture  of  an  informer 
— His  place  in  the  Irish  heart. 

Chapter  IV.  Lord  Plunkett Page  168 


Reverend  Thomas  Plunkett — Lord  Plunkett's  early  associa- 
tions— At  Dublin  University — In  the  Historical  Society — In  the 
gallery  of  house  of  commons — Legal  preparations  in  London — 
The  frivolity  of  Dublin — Professional  success — Enters  parlia- 
ment at  behest  of  Charlemont. 


Enters  parliament  to  fight  the  union — The  corruption  of  par- 
liament— The  pensioners  and  placemen — Analysis  of  house  of 
commons  in  1798 — Castlereagh  takes  charge  of  corruption  con- 
spiracy—Character of  Castlereagh— Pitt's  plan  to  aid  the  union— * 


CONTENTS-~Continued 

Personnel  of  the  patriots— Ministry  attacks  the  patriot  press=^ 
Plunkett  defends  it — Rebellion  of  '98 — Government  refuses  in- 
quiry into  cause  of  discontent — Parliament  packed  for  the  union 
— Castlereagh's  minion,  Cook,  issues  pamphlet  advocating  union 
— Plunkett  and  the  patriots  reply — Plunkett's  plan  of  defense-^ 
First  debate  begins  on  the  address — Attempt  to  intimidate  and 
silence  the  patriots — Plunkett's  defiance — His  first  great  speech 
— His  denunciation  of  Castlereagh — Government  defeated  by  one 
— Castle  determines  on  intimidation — Unionist  Dueling  Club 
forrned — Plunkett  organizes  similar  club— Castlereagh  adjourns 
parHament  to  strengthen  forces — Cornwallis'  union  electioneering 
tour — Patriots  force  the  fighting  at  beginning  of  parliament — Doc- 
tor Brown's  apostacy  by  purchase — Plunkett's  open  denunciation 
of  Brown — His  brilliant  speech  against  the  union — Castlereagh 
gets  what  he  bought — The  union  consummated — Effect  of  the 
tragedy  on  Plunkett— His  drift  away  from  Ireland— Enters  Eng- 
lish parliament— Steers  Emancipation  bill  through  the  lords. 

Ill 

Plunkett  made  chancellor  of  Ireland — Thrown  over  by  his 
English  friends — Retires  to  home  in  Old  Connaught — Last  days 
and^  death — His  greatness  as  an  orator — Imposing  presence — i 
Facial  advantages — His  gestures — His  voice — Bulwer  Lytton's 
tribute — His  st>-le — His  figures — His  invective — Philippic  against 
Castlereagh— Denunciation  of  Cornwallis'  tour— Ireland's  debt  to 
Plunkett. 

Chapter  V.   Robert  Emmet Page  204 

I 
Mystery  of  Emmet's  career— The  Emmet  family— Emmet's 
early  schoohng — Brilliancy  at  Trinity — His  remarkable  eloquence 
— Nerv^ousness  of  government — Approaching  crisis  in  Ireland — 
His  appearance  at  Trinity — Amazing  tribute  to  his  college 
speeches — His  discussion  of  politics  in  the  debating  society — He 
fires  the  patriotism  of  the  students — Defends  the  French  Revolu- 
tion— Government  sends  old  man  to  answer  him — Government 
expels  students  suspected  of  treasonable  doctrines — Emmet  sum- 
moned before  Lord  Clare — Refuses  to  turn  informer  and  leaves 
Trinity— Espouses  principles  of  United  Irishmen — Tom  Moore's 
story— Becomes  revolutionist. 

n 

Emmet  leaves  for  the  continent— Indicted  but  not  arrested— 
Mystery  of  the  government's  attitude— His  life  in  Paris— Myths 
and  mysteries  about  his  movements — Interviews  Napoleon  and 
Talleyrand— Studies  military  tactics — Ireland  ruled  bloodily  with 
iron  hand — Mystery  of  his  return  to  Ireland — Who  sent  him  the 
false  hope?— The  papers  in  Dublin  Castle— The  letter  of  Pitt— 


C0NTE:\TS— Continued 

Did  the  government  foment  the  rising  of  1803? — Disappearance 
of  the  papers  from  the  Castle — Emmet's  optimism  and  enthusiasm 
on  return. 

m 

Emmet's  appearance  at  this  time — Surrounded  by  spies — Con- 
verts his  fortune  into  money — Establishes  depots  and  buys  ammu- 
nition— The  succession  of  blunders — The  mystery  of  these — The 
premature  rising — The  march  on  the  Castle — The  accession  of  the 
rabble — Murder  of  Kihvarden — Emmet  makes  his  escape. 

IV 

Emmet  in  the  Wicklow  hills — His  love  for  Sarah  Curran— 
The  love-stor}' — Returns  to  bid  Sarah  farewell — Betrayed  by  an 
informer — Brutality  of  the  authorities — The  later  life  of  Sarah 
Curran. 

V 

The  trial  of  Emmet — Xorbury — Scene  in  the  court  room — 
Emmet's  speech  from  the  dock — The  flickering  lamp — The  sen- 
tence— The  veiled  woman — The  government  issues  garbled  re- 
port of  Emmet's  speech — The  journey  to  the  scaffold — The  exe- 
cution. 


Chapter  VI.  Daniel  O'Connell Page  237 

I 

O'Connell's  ancestr}- — His  birth — Babyhood  in  the  Iveragh 
mountains — His  precocity — Youth  in  Kerry — At  Saint  Omer's — 
Flight  from  the  French  Revolution — Earlj'  studies  and  mental 
processes — His  journal — His  morbid  ambition — His  relation  to 
the  rebellion  of  '98 — Effect  upon  him  of  the  union — He  places 
Irish  CathoUcs  on  record  against  it. 


O'Connell  assumes  leadership  of  Catholics  In  emancipation 
fight — He  overthrows  the  conservatives — He  favors  agitation — 
His  speech  advocating  it — Leads  the  fight  against  the  securities — 
His  speech  at  Limerick — Not  regretful  over  defeat  of  Relief 
bill  of  1813  containing  securities — Reply  to  Councilor  Bellew's 
defense  of  securities — Mendacity  of  Bellew — Sheil  becomes  cham- 
pion of  securities — Aristocracy  favors  them — O'Connell  organ- 
izes the  masses  against  them — Monsignor  Quarantotti  acquiesces 
— O'Connell  repudiates  his  advice — Irish  prelates  support  his  po- 
sition. 

in 

O'Connell  enlists  services  of  liberal  Protestants — Entrusts 
preparation  of  petition  to  parliament  to  one  of  them — His  trib- 


CONTENTS— Conftnw^rf 

tites  to  Protestant  supporters  at  public  dinners — He  urges  IrisH 
support  for  Protestant  Irish  industries — His  speech — Protects  his 
people  against  the  law — Insists  on  constitutional  methods — Warns 
people  against  seditious  organizations — Conciliates  differences 
among  Catholics — His  method  of  doing  it — Government  sup- 
presses Catholic  board — O'Connell  appeals  to  Shell  to  join  in 
organizing  Catholic  association. 

IV 

Shell's  former  enmity  to  O'Connell— O'Connell  refuses  to 
quarrel  with  friends  of  Ireland — Above  envy — Tributes  to  Grat- 
tan,  Plunkett  and  others  who  opposed  him — He  meets  Shell  in 
1823  and  the  organization  is  determined  upon. 


First  meeting  of  the  association— O'Connell's  plan  to  organize 
the  masses — He  unites  all  elements — Arouses  the  country  with 
fiery  speeches — Issues  declaration  of  war  on  government — His 
speech — Association  meetings  resemble  national  parliament — 
O'Connell  lashes  country  into  storm — His  "mob  oratory" — He 
hints  at  revolution — The  government  alarmed — It  puts  the  asso- 
ciation down— O'Connell  perfects  another— Relief  bill  of  1825 
defeated  in  the  lords — Duke  of  York's  part — Duke's  bigoted 
speech  printed  by  Orangemen — Mass  meeting  called— O'Connell's 
speech — He  warns  the  government — He  conjures  with  the  Amer- 
ican revolution — He  decides  to  manifest  his  power — He  organ- 
izes defeat  of  Lord  Beresford  in  a  by-election— Decides  to  chal- 
lenge the  law  excluding  Catholics  from  parliament — Runs  for 
Clare — Spectacular  contest — Is  elected— Excitement  in  London— 
O'Connell  the  uncrowned  king — Government  surrenders — Eman- 
cipation bill  passes— Petty  proviso  excludes  O'Connell— Is  re- 
elected. 

VI 

O'Connell's  world-wide  repute — Voted  for  for  the  Belgian 
throne — Hated  by  king  of  England — Admired  by  Palmer  son — 
Cultivated  by  Disraeli — O'Connell's  parliamentary  attitude — His 
mind  on  the  repeal  of  the  union— He  plans  long  fight — Restrains 
impatience  of  the  people — Relief  breakfasts  outlawed  in  Dublin 
— Arrest  of  O'Connell  a  fiasco — Coercion  act  of  1833 — O'Con- 
nell's fight  against  it — He  originates  obstruction — His  denuncia- 
tion of  English  misrule — The  general  election — O'Connell's  plan 
to  make  the  Irish  a  factor— Fights  the  Tories  because  of  the 
coercion  act — Topples  over  the  Peel  ministry — His  alliance  with 
the  Whigs — The  historic  meeting  at  Lord  Russell's — O'Connell's 
sarcastic  attack  on  Lord  Liverpool— Attempt  to  expel  O'Connell 
from  Brooks— The  Irish  Corporation  Reform  bill— O'Connell's 
Anchor  Tavern  speech — His  defiance  of  the  house — He  announces 
the  Irish  program — Decides  to  give  the  Whigs  a  chance — Olive 


CONTENTS— Confmw^d 

fcrancH  declined— O'Connell  compares  records  of  crimes  in  Ire- 
land and  England — Speech — The  lords  emasculate  the  Municipal 
Corporation  bill — O'Connell  declares  battle — The  Dublin  repeal 
speech — O'Connell  turns  to  the  masses  again. 

vn 

Organizes  the  Repeal  Association — The  **Monster  Meetings" 
'—O'Connell  at  Cork — The  demonstration  at  Limerick — Character 
of  his  speeches — The  Repeal  Cavalry — Character  of  the  meetings 
— Attempts  to  assassinate  O'Connell — Attacks  on  his  reputation — 
Lord  Greville's  defense — Government  threatens  armed  forces 
— O'Connell's  defiance — Peel's  alarm — The  meeting  at  Tara — 
Bulwer's  description — O'Connell  crowned  at  Mullaghmast — His 
speech — His  tribute  to  Kildare — Draws  plans  for  Irish  parliament 
— The  Clontarf  proscription — The  infamy  of  it — The  arrest  of 
O'Connell. 

VIII 

O'Conneirs  triumphant  appearance  at  court — The  packed  jury 
' — Lecky's  poor  excuse — Canned  conviction — The  verdict  shocks 
the  world — O'Connell  given  ovation  in  parliament — Sentenced  to 
prison — Multitudes  accompany  him  to  prison  gates — House  of 
lords  reverse  the  verdict — Accompanied  home  by  thousands — His 
health  broken — The  famine  of  '47 — O'Connell  pleads  for  his 
starving  people — Starts  to  Rome — His  death  at  Geneva. 

IX 

O'Connell  at  Darrynane— The  surroundings — His  life  there — 
His  lordly  hospitality — Attitude  toward  dependents — His  hunting 
— His  sentimental  side — His  letter  to  Landor — Life  in  Dublin — 
His  religious  nature — His  retreat  at  Mount  Melleray  Abbey. 

X 

O'Connell  as  an  orator — Randolph's  opinion — Duvergier's — • 
Wendell  Phillips' — First  great  British  popular  orator — "The  ver- 
dict is  the  thing" — His  "mob  oratory" — Used  the  big  canvas — His 
knowledge  of  human  nature — Strength  alone  considered — A 
poet's  description  of  O'Connell  in  action — His  physical  advan- 
tages— His  gestures — His  powerful  invective — Some  characteri- 
zations— Master  of  pathos — His  use  of  Gaelic. 

Chapter  VH.  Thomas  Francis  Meagher  ....    Page  328 

I 
Meagher's  birth — His  life  at  Water  ford — College  in  Kildare 
— At  Stonyhurst  College — At  Queen's  Inn,  Dublin — Dublin  so- 
ciety in  1844—The  repeal  orators. 


COt^TENT  S^Continued 

II 

Meagher  becomes  member  parliamentary  committee,  Repeal 
Association — O'Brien  discovers  his  genius — Meagher  becomes  one 
of  repeal  orators — His  first  speech  in  Conciliation  Hall — The 
speech — Hailed  as  the  new  spokesman — Conditions  in  Ireland — 
Dissatisfaction  over  the  Whig  alliance — Mitchell's  protest — Apos- 
tacy  of  Shell — The  break  of  Young  Ireland  with  O'Connell — A 
spectacular  meeting  in  Conciliation  Hall — Meagher's  "Sword 
Speech"^Effect  on  the  audience — Lady  Wilde's  tribute. 

Ill 

Young  Islanders  driven  out — O'Connell  invites  them  back— ^ 
John  O'Connell,  trouble  maker — Irish  Confederation  born — The 
famine — The  fires  of  patriotism  fanned  by  mihtancy — Growth  of 
the  Confederation — Its  parliamentary  plans — Mitchell  scorns  all 
methods  but  force — Meagher's  views — His  speech — Is  marked  for 
slaughter  by  the  Castle — He  stands  for  parliamentary  seat  for 
Waterford  —  His  father's  opposition  —  His  militant  campaign 
speeches — The  vote — Young  Ireland  hails  the  French  Revolution 
of  '48 — The  celebration — Meagher's  militant  speech — Arrested 
with  Mitchell  and  O'Brien  for  sedition — Ireland  in  revolt — 
Meagher's  speech  from  a  window — He  takes  the  address  to 
France. 

IV 

Preparations  for  rebellion  in  Ireland — David  Hyland,  pike- 
maker — The  government's  cat  and  mouse  policy — Meagher  be- 
gins a  campaign  tour — The  mob  at  Limerick — Meagher's  seditious 
speech — The  trial  of  Meagher — A  hung  jury — Mitchell's  trial — 
The  conviction — The  proposed  rescue — The  formal  conspiracy — ♦ 
The  revolutionary  committee — Meagher  arrested  at  Waterford 
— He  prevents  a  rescue — Exciting  trip  to  Dublin — The  cheering 
multitudes — Gives  bond — Starts  south  to  arouse  the  people — The 
meeting  on  Slievenamon  Mountain — Meagher's  speech — Govern- 
ment calls  on  the  people  to  disarm — Meagher  countermands  the 
order. 

V 

Young  Ireland  prepares  for  war — The  committee  of  public 
safety — The  final  meeting — Mistakes  and  blunders — Arrest  of  the 
leaders — Meagher's  trial  and  conviction — His  speech  from  the 
dock. 

VI 

Meagher  in  the  No-Man*s-Land — His  escape  to  America — His 
lectures — His  part  in  the  Civil  War — The  Irish  Brigade — Ap- 
pointed acting  governor  of  Montana — His  death. 

VII 

As  an  orator--HIs  physical  advantages — His  fire  and  passion 
— A  master  of  invective — His   denunciation  of  the  lords — His 


CO'NTEIS^TS— Continued 

denunciation  of  England  for  imprisoning  O'Brien — The  lyrical 
qualities  of  his  speeches — His  prose  poems — "By  the  soft  blue 
waters  of  Lake  Lucerne" — "The  spirit  that  nerved  the  Red  Hand 
of  Ulster" — His  word  pictures — His  poetic  fancy — His  surprise 
stingers. 

Chapter  VHL   Isaac  Butt      ........     Page  373 


Butt's  early  Ulster  days — Parents — Career  at  Trinity — He 
founds  the  Dublin  University  Magazine — His  literary  efforts — 
His  work  in  the  Historical  Society — Professor  of  political  econ- 
omy— His  lectures  on  the  Land  problem — Early  success  at  the 
bar — His  early  political  affiliations — Darling  of  the  Tories — Is  put 
forward  to  answer  O'Connell — His  appearance  at  the  time. 


Butt  writes  for  English  conservative  papers — Prosperous  days 
— His  lordly  convivial  habits — O'Brien's  Recollections — Butt's 
money  difficulties — He  defends  Smith  O'Brien — He  enters  parlia- 
ment as  a  conservative — His  rollicking  days  in  London — His 
wine  bibbling — A  story  of  a  creditor — Bankruptcy — Defeated  for 
parliament — Returns  to  his  profession  in  DubUn. 

Ill 

The  militant  spirit  in  Ireland — The  Fenian  Brotherhood — ■ 
Conditions  favorable  to  it — The  leaders — James  Stephens — Luby 
and  O'Leary — The  Irish  People — Charles  Joseph  Kickman — 
O'Donovan  Rossa — John  Devoy — Raid  on  the  paper — Arrests  for 
treason-felony — Butt  takes  charge  of  defense — Historic  sig- 
nificance— The  trials — The  packed  juries — The  informers — Butt's 
brilliant  defense  work — Stephens  escapes  prison — Luby's  trial — = 
Butt  protests  against  military  display — He  takes  every  constitu- 
tional privilege — The  judge  reverses  the  British  law — Butt  de- 
fends militancy — His  speech — His  failures — The  succeeding  trials 
for  high  treason — Butt's  spirited  defense — His  tribute  to  Fenians 
— He  denounces  the  court — His  speech — He  charges  the  British 
government  with  perjury — His  denunciation — His  defense  of 
Flood — One  law  for  England,  another  for  Ireland — Butt's 
speech — The  mockery  of  the  trials — The  Manchester  martyrs — \ 
Injustice  converts  Butt  into  an  Irish  patriot. 

IV 

Government's  torture  of  Fenian  prisoners — The  case  of  Rossa 
--Butt  aroused — He  organizes  the  Amnesty  Association — He  pe- 
titions Gladstone  for  the  release  of  the  Fenians — He  organizes 
monster  mass  meetings   over   Ireland — Addresses   two   hundred 


CQ-NTENTS-Continued 

thousand  at  Cabra  fields — His  public  letter  to  Gladstone — His 
tribute  to  character  of  the  Fenians — His  description  of  the 
Cabra  meeting — Warns  Gladstone  of  Irish  feeling — Rossa 
elected  to  parliament — News  carried  to  Gladstone — Butt's  final 
success — Ireland's  debt  to  Fenianism. 


Butt  reenters  parliament — His  new  character — Aims  at  repeal 
of  the  union — He  organizes  the  Home-Rule  movement — Appeals 
for  Fenian  help — The  dinner  at  Hood's  Hotel — Butt's  speech — 
O'Brien  destroys  his  notes — The  election  of  1874 — Desperate 
straits  of  the  Irish  party — Butt's  pitiful  situation — Pursued  by 
bankruptcy  messengers — Makes  brave  fight — Personnel  of  the 
party — Butt's  idea  of  Home  Rule — O'Donnell's  definition — Butt's 
leadership — How  it  differed  from  Parnell's — His  Home-Rule 
speech — The  effect — Its  wide  distribution — Result  of  his  gentle- 
manly tactics — His  interest  in  the  land  question — Writes  on  the 
subject — Exposes  uselessness  of  Land  Act  of  1870 — Writes  The 
Irish  People  and  Irish  Land — His  description  of  the  parting  of 
emigrants — English  mockery — Butt  tries  modest  obstruction — 
People  lose  faith — Butt's  promise  at  Queenstown — His  creditors 
■ — Is  forced  to  practise  law — Burning  the  candle  at  both  ends — 
Displaced  as  the  head  of  the  Home-Rule  Confederation — His 
last  appearance — His  death. 


Butt's  lovable  nature — As  an  orator — His  power  over  juries — 
His  mastery  of  pathos — His  picture  of  an  evicted  family — The 
manner  in  which  he  prepared  his  speeches — Devoy's  story — Butt's 
last  word  to  Ireland. 


Chapter  IX.   Charles  Stewart  Parnell    ....     Page  424 


Parnell's  parentage — Avonmore — His  childhood — Boyish  ha- 
tred of  the  EngHsh — In  English  schools — At  Cambridge — His 
lack  of  ambition — Fanny  Parnell — The  Fenians — The  raid  on  his 
mother's  house — The  Manchester  martyrs — The  vote  by  ballot 
reform — Parnell  becomes  ambitious — He  stands  for  parliament — 
The  Dublin  failure — Elected  for  Meath — The  coldness  of  the 
party  leaders — Parnell's  lack  of  preparation — His  ignorance  of 
Irish  history. 

II 

Biggar's  first  obstruction  speech — Effect  on  Parnell — Studies 
the  field — 'T  must  ask  some  questions" — Shocks  the  house  by 
defense  of  Manchester  martyrs — Attracts  attention  of  the  Fe- 
nians— He  carries  the  Nationalists'  message  to  President  Grant 


CONTENTS— ConfmM(?i 

i— His  Liverpool  speech — He  cultivates  the  Irish  in  England — His 
plan  to  harmonize  all  Irish  elements — Resorts  to  obstruction  on 
the  Mutiny  and  Prison  bills — His  obstruction  methods — The 
fury  of  the  English — Butt  repudiates  Parnell's  tactics — Parnell's 
reply — The  radicals  rally  to  Parnell — He  explains  in  his  Man- 
chester speech — Bids  for  Fenian  support — He  fights  the  South 
African  bill  with  obstruction — Harcourt  denounces  him — Excit- 
ing scenes — The  Fenian  discovery — Ireland  united  again. 

Ill 

Parnell  and  the  Fenians — Declines  to  join  the  Brotherhood—' 
Encourages  Fenian  activity — His  strength  with  the  American 
Clan-na-Gaels — Michael  Davitt — John  Devoy — Plan  to  arouse  the 
Irish  farmers — Devoy's  proposal  of  an  alliance — Tenant  defense 
associations — Wholesale  evictions — Parnell's  attitude — "Keep  a 
firm  hold  on  your  homesteads" — The  government's  alarm — The 
revolutionary  meeting  at  Limerick — Parnell's  advice  to  tenants — 
Ireland  aroused — Parnell  heads  the  Land  League — The  Land 
League  protest  meetings — The  arrest  of  Davitt — Parnell's  de- 
fiance— His  American  tour — Irish-American  dollars — Parnell's 
speeches — The  general  election — Parnell's  campaign — He  helps 
the  liberals  to  win. 

IV 

Parnell  in  opposition — Holds  aloof  from  English  parties — 
Condition  of  tenants — Parnell  presents  bill  to  stay  evictions — And 
to  grant  compensation — It  passes  the  commons — Defeated  by  the 
lords — War  declared — Riots  over  Ireland — Parnell's  message  at 
Ennis — He  advocates  the  boycott — The  enthusiastic  response — 
The  growth  of  the  league — Patrick  Ford — Outrages  on  tenants — 
The  reign  of  terror — The  Land  League  versus  the  government — 
Parnell  skirts  sedition — He  is  arrested — His  contempt  of  the  pro- 
ceedings— The  prosecution  fails — The  Coercion  bill — Parnell's 
spectacular  fight — Prisons  filled — Gladstone  alarmed — His  Land 
Reform  bill — Parnell's  attitude — His  diplomacy — The  Irish  party 
fails  to  vote — Parnell  proposes  for  league  to  review  cases — Is 
bitterly  assailed — Gladstone's  denunciation — Parnell's  reply  at 
Wexford — He  challenges  the  government — The  challenge  ac- 
cepted— Parnell  is  arrested— "Captain  Moonlight.'* 


Parnell  at  Kilmainham  prison — Anarchy  in  Ireland— Glad- 
stone alarmed — At  the  mercy  of  Parnell — "The  Kilmainham 
treaty" — Parnell  released — The  liberal  split — The  Phcenix  Park 
murders — Effect  on  Parnell — Coercion  again — Gladstone  keeps 
the  treaty. 

VI 

Forster's  attack  on  Parnell — Parnell's  contemptuous  reply — 
Seditious  conditions  in  Ireland — "Down   with  Gladstone" — Par- 


CONTENTS— Cowfinw^d 

nell  determines  to  force  the  crisis — He  plays  with  Gladstone, 
Churchill  and  Chamberlain — The  fall  of  Gladstone — "Remember 
Coercion" — Tories  in  power  on  Irish  suffrance — Morley's  taunt 
— Parnell  extorts  concessions — The  elections — Parnell's  keynote — 
He  demands  Home  Rule — English  indignation — Parnell's  threat 
— Flirting  with  the  Irish — Gladstone  sends  feeler — Parnell  coaxes 
him  on — G.  O.  M.  too  coy — Parnell  denounces  liberals — Parnell 
holds  balance  of  power. 

VII 

Parnell  serves  notice  of  use  of  power — Tories  lose  interest — 
Churchill's  cynical  remark — Gladstone  negotiates — He  submits 
proposition  to  Parnell — Is  accepted — The  Tories  fall — The 
Home-Rule  Bill  of  1886 — Parnell's  management — Morley's  de- 
scription— Ulster  up — Gladstone's  troubles  with  liberal  rebels — 
Chamberlain's  treachery — Bright's  desertion — Parnell's  speech — 
The  government  defeated — The  spectacular  election — Gladstone 
champions  Irish  cause  on  hustings — Salisbury  returns  to  power 
— Parnell  pushes  another  land  act — Is  defeated — Turmoil  in  Ire- 
land— Coercion  again — The  packing  of  the  prisons — Gladstone 
fights  fiercely  for  Home  Rule — Parnell's  game. 

VIII 

The  Irish  question  in  English  politics — The  Times  libels — 
*Tarnellism  and  Crime" — The  Pigott  forgery — The  expose — 
Pigott's  suicide — Parnell's  vindication — His  ovation  in  the  house 
' — The  Home-Rule  prospect — The  approaching  election — The  di- 
vorce case — Gladstone  demands  Parnell's  retirement — Committee 
Room  15 — Redmond's  demand — McCarthy  leads  out  a  majority 
—The  split. 

IX 

Parnell  determines  to  fight — Feverish  activity  on  hustings — 
Lonesome  night  in  Dublin — Failing  health— His  sudden  death 
i— Parnell's  status — His  complex  personality— His  superstitions — 
His  love  of  animals — His  treatment  of  his  tenants — Gladstone's 
tribute. 

X 

Parnell  as  a  speaker — His  voice — Secret  of  platform  successes 
t^Personal  appearance — Redmond's  explanation  of  Parnell's  suc- 
cesses— Gladstone's  view — Morley's  tribute — Parnell's  passion  for 
the  one  right  word — His  nervous  dread  of  crowds — His  Amer- 
ican speeches. 

Chapter  X.  The  Last  Quarter  of  a  Century — 

1891-1912      .........  Page  507 

Bibliography Page  513 

Index .  Page  519 


THE  IRISH  ORATORS 


THE  IRISH  ORATORS 


HENRY   FLOOD 

The  Fight  for  the  Control  of  the  Purse-strings  b}'  the   Irish 

ParHament;    Beginnings    of    Systematic    Corruption    of 

Parliament;  the  Fight  for  Simple  Repeal;  the 

Story  of  the  Volunteers ;  the  Battle 

for  Parliamentary  Reform 

THE  period  immediately  preceding  the  activity  of 
Dean  Swift  was  one  of  utter  darkness  and  hope- 
lessness in  Ireland.  The  parliament  of  the  people — 
if  such  a  parliament  could  be  charged  to  any  portion 
of  the  people — was  verily  a  *'den  of  thieves" where 
the  interests  of  Ireland  were  sacrificed  upon  the  altar 
of  place  and  pelf.  \Mthout  the  walls  of  the  parlia- 
ment house,  all  was  darkness.  The  people  manifested 
not  the  slightest  concern  regarding  the  political  poli- 
cies through  \vhich  they  were  governed.  There  was 
no  such  thing  as  public  opinion ;  scarcely  such  a  thing 
as  a  patriotic  passion.  Ireland  was  dormant  and  al- 
most dead. 

And  then  came  Swift  with  his  vitriolic  pen  to  lash 
the  rascals  of  the  parliament  house,  to  shame  the 
people  out  of  their  apathy  and  to  create  a  healthful 
public  opinion  upon  which  might  have  been  built  a  mil- 
itant patriotic  party.  But  the  death  of  the  satirist  left 
Ireland  without  a  leader  and  she  gradually  fell  into  a 

1 


2  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

dismal  drowse.  The  years  that  followed  were  dreary 
enough.  The  people  themselves  seemed  to  have  lost 
all  sense  of  self-respect.  The  dominating  power  across 
the  channel  treated  them  with  the  contempt  which 
their  indifference  merited.  The  parliament  became  a 
mere  toy — a  plaything  of  the  minister.  It  was  reduced 
to  utter  impotency.  Even  the  viceroy  credited  to 
Dublin  disdained  to  dwell  within  the  Castle,  and,  after 
a  formal  entry  upon  his  duties,  it  was  his  custom  to 
hurry  back  to  the  more  congenial  atmosphere  of  the 
court.  However,  he  did  not  wholly  neglect  the 
government.  He  found  his  residential  agents  in 
members  of  parliament  who  came  to  be  known  as 
Undertakers  from  the  fact  that  they  stipulated,  in  con- 
sideration of  pension  and  place  and  patronage,  to  un- 
dertake the  business  of  carrying  out  the  policies  of  the 
minister.  In  time  the  parliament  degenerated  into  an 
insipid  company  of  hucksters.  No  one  cared  to  protest 
against  the  humiliation  of  the  country.  Not  a  voice 
was  raised  in  behalf  of  the  liberty  of  the  land.  The 
story  of  this  period  of  Ireland  is  recorded  on  the  most 
bleak  and  barren  pages  of  her  history. 

At  length — a  miracle!  A  voice  of  protest  within 
the  house  of  commons  awakened  languid  curiosity. 
The  Undertakers  yawned,  stretched  themselves  and 
smiled.  Occasionally  this  voice  wavered  and  broke. 
This  was  reassuring.  It  made  no  impression  upon  the 
great  inert  mass  without  the  halls  of  parliament. 
Within,  it  was  as  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness and  with  no  answer  but  a  cry.  It  was  the  voice" 
of  Anthony  Malone,  perhaps  the  first  great  orator  of 
Ireland,  a  man  of  marvelous  mentality,  amazing  elo- 
quence and  unimpeachable  integrity.     TJufortunately 


HENRY    FLOOD  3 

his  great  parliamentary  speeches  were  delivered  before 
the  days  of  permanent  records,  and  his  reputation  rests 
very  largely  upon  the  tributes  of  his  contemporaries. 
Standing  alone,  he  accomplished  little.  His  methods 
were  strictly  constitutional  and  his  admonitions  were 
confined  to  the  *'den  of  thieves." 

Then  appeared — The  Man. 

One  day  during  the  closing  period  of  the  reign  of 
George  H,  a  brilliant  and  dashing  young  man  of  the 
aristocracy,  whose  eloquence  suggested  the  command- 
ing genius  of  Lord  Chatham,  took  his  seat  in  the  Irish 
house  of  commons.  He  looked  beyond  the  parliament 
house  w^ith  its  miserable  pensioners  and  saw  the  peo- 
ple of  Ireland  sleeping  in  their  chains.  He  had  the 
audacity  of  an  iconoclast.  He  determined  to  bring  to 
bear  upon  the  placemen  of  parliament  the  stinging  lash 
of  an  aroused  public  opinion.  He  proposed  a  program 
of  radical  reforms.  He  urged  it  with  an  eloquence 
that  shook  the  parliament  and  echoed  across  the  chan- 
nel where  it  beat  against  the  walls  of  Saint  Stephens. 
He  reiterated  it  with  such  persistency  that  he  disturbed 
the  slumbers  of  the  sleeping  thousands  and  they  awoke 
to  a  sense  of  their  national  humiliation  and  to  a 
realization  of  their  rights.  He  created  public  opinion 
— and  through  this  he  made  a  party,  a  party  of  virile 
opposition.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  nation. 
And  this  epic  figure  was  the  first  of  the  heroic  charac- 
ters that  have  been  fighting  the  battle  of  Irish  inde- 
pendence up  to  the  present  hour.  Mistakes  he  made, 
no  doubt,  and  sometimes,  alas,  his  course  was  tortuous 
and  seemingly  inconsistent,  but  in  the  history  of  Ire- 
land few  names  will  shine  more  luminously  in  the  day 
of  her  triumph  than  that  of  Henry  Flood. 


4  IHE   IRISH   ORATORS 

I 

It  was  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  a  gay  and  dash- 
ing ancestor  of  Henry  Flood  left  his  home  in  Kent, 
and,  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  marched  into  Ireland 
and  established  a  family.  After  the  fashion  of  the 
invader  he  was  soon  numbered  among  the  aristocracy. 
One  of  his  sons  became  chief  justice  of  the  king's 
bench  and  lived  the  lordly  life  of  a  gentleman.  Appre- 
ciating the  privileges  of  an  aristocrat  he  appears  to 
have  been  a  trifle  unconventional  in  his  wooing,  and 
unfortunately,  if  tradition  is  to  be  credited,  his  first 
son,  Henry  Flood,  born  in  1732,  made  something  of  a 
premature  appearance  in  the  world.  Being  the  only 
child  and  the  heir  to  a  great  estate  he  was  carefully 
trained  to  play  his  part  becomingly  in  the  fashionable 
world  to  which  he  was  destined  by  birth.  While  his 
biographers  are  silent  regarding  his  preliminary  educa- 
tion, his  admission  to  Trinity  College  in  his  sixteenth 
year  justifies  the  assumption  that  it  was  thorough. 
Hardly  had  he  settled  down  to  his  studies  when  his 
precocity  manifested  itself  in  a  disposition  to  live  up 
to  the  reputation  of  his  ancestors,  and  we  find  him  en- 
tering with  the  keenest  zest  into  the  fashions  and 
frivolity  of  the  capital,  draining  his  cup  with  an  aban- 
don that  would  have  reflected  credit  upon  the  founder 
of  the  Irish  branch  of  the  family.  There  was  ample 
opportunity  in  the  Dublin  of  those  days  for  dissipa- 
tion, and  an  early  indication  that  the  future  orator's 
conception  of  education  was  that  of  a  man  of  the 
world,  impelled  his  father  hurriedly  to  transfer  him  to 
Oxford,  where  temptations  were  not  so  alluring. 

It  was  in  the  classic  halls  of  the  great  university  that 


HENRY    FLOOD  5 

his  ambition  was  aroused.  He  was  fortunate  in  being 
placed  under  the  supervision  of  Doctor  Markham, 
afterward  Archbishop  of  York,  and  during  the  two 
years  of  his  Hfe  in  Oxford  he  appHed  himself  to  his 
studies  with  the  greatest  dihgence.  While  at  Trinity 
he  had  found  that  his  native  ingenuity  gave  him  an 
easy  advantage  over  his  fellow  students  and  this  had 
encouraged  him  to  neglect  his  books.  Nothing  per- 
haps did  more  to  w^ean  him  away  from  this  dangerous 
tendency  to  rest  upon  his  oars  than  his  association 
with  men  of  intellectual  brilliancy  at  Oxford.  We 
find  him  turning  as  if  by  instinct  to  such  studies  as 
were  fitted  to  prepare  him  for  public  life.  He  turned 
eagerly  to  mathematics  and  the  study  of  philosophy 
to  stimulate  his  reasoning  faculties.  He  became  profi- 
cient in  the  classics.  He  translated  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man poets  and  the  masterpieces  of  the  ancient  orators. 
His  favorite  among  the  poets  appears  to  have  been 
Pindar,  from  whom  he  translated  several  odes.  He 
pored  over  the  histories  of  the  ancient  republics  and 
became  familiar  with  their  struggles  for  liberty  and  the 
great  characters  who  led  and  dominated  their  policies. 
In  view  of  the  frequent  comparisons  between  the  con- 
cise and  nervous  style  which  characterized  him  in  the 
prime  of  his  power  and  the  style  of  Demosthenes  it  is 
interesting  to  know  that  he  learned  the  oration  on  the 
Crown  by  heart.  His  efforts  at  composition  during 
this  period  were  not  confined  to  prose.  We  have  still 
extant  several  of  his  verses,  but  they  contribute  noth- 
ing to  his  fame.  He  appears  to  have  left  Oxford  in 
his  twenty-first  year  with  a  mind  well  stored  and  a 
style  well  formed  for  disputation. 

Upon  this  graduation  he  entered    the   Temple  to 


6  [THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

study  law,  and,  while  his  biographers  rather  depreciate 
his  work  here,  some  of  his  speeches  in  later  years,  in 
which  he  displayed  a  remarkable  familiarity  with  the 
constitution  and  the  fundamentals  of  jurisprudence, 
would  indicate  that  the  time  devoted  to  the  Temple 
was  not  entirely  lost. 

When  after  a  seven  years'  sojourn  in  England  he 
returned  to  his  native  isle  and  plunged  precipitately 
into  public  life  he  faced  a  roseate  future.  His  family 
position  and  his  acquirements  and  convivial  tastes 
would  have  made  it  an  easy  matter  for  him  to  have 
become  one  of  the  darlings  of  the  Castle.  He  was  a 
young  man  of  striking  appearance.  His  slender  figure 
was  exceedingly  graceful  and  he  had  the  manner  of 
the  polished  courtier.  His  face,  dominated  by  strong 
eagle-like  eyes,  was  said  to  have  been  remarkably 
handsome.  His  conversational  cleverness  marked  him 
for  social  distinction.  His  popularity  was  great 
with  all  classes,  for,  notwithstanding  his  aristocratic 
origin,  he  was  always  democratic  in  his  manner  and 
associations.  And  yet,  withal,  there  was  something 
of  dignity  about  his  bearing  which  set  him  apart  from 
the  crowd. 

Such  was  Henry  Flood  when  he  entered  the  Irish 
house  of  commons  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  as  a 
member  for  Kilkenny.  The  situation  confronting 
the  ardent  young  statesman  who  had  imbibed  copiously 
of  the  lessons  of  Greek  and  Roman  freedom  must 
have  seemed  appalling.  The  country  was  in  dire  need 
of  a  popular  constitution  to  define  her  rights.  The 
parliament  was  absolutely  powerless  to  act  and  was 
merely  a  parliament  in  name.  Its  principal  function 
>vas  to  listen  to  the  plausible  address  of  the  vicero}^ 


HENRY    FLOOD  7 

and  return  a  servile  compliance  in  the  lofty  language 
of  sycophancy,  Its  members  might  meet  unmolested, 
might  even  venture  to  discuss  the  measures  of  the 
crown,  and  at  times  might  even  vote  against  them — 
but  whatever  it  did  was  completely  inoperative  without 
the  sanction  of  the  power  across  the  channel.  No  bill 
could  have  its  origin  in  the  Irish  parliament  until  con- 
sent had  been  given  by  the  deputy  and  the  privy  coun- 
cil. This  toy  law-making  body  was  graciously  accorded 
the  privilege  of  submitting  bills  to  its  master  which 
could  be  either  wholly  rejected  or  amended  out  of  all 
recognition.  Looking  over  the  personnel  of  the  body 
with  which  he  was  associated,  Flood  could  find  but  one 
on  whom  he  could  rely  in  any  attempt  at  reformation, 
and  Anthony  Malone  was  growing  old  and  the  fires 
of  his  genius  that  once  burned  so  brightly  w'ere  flicker- 
ing now.  True,  Doctor  Lucas  had  given  unmistakable 
proof  of  a  unique  patriotism,  but  he  was  powerful  only 
in  the  strength  of  the  principles  he  proclaimed.  The 
great  mass  of  the  members  were  pensioners,  partakers 
of  the  bounty  of  the  Castle,  Undertakers  in  the  shame- 
ful work  of  national  humiliation. 

The  first  four  years  of  Flood's  parliamentary  career 
were  barren  of  biographical  data,  since  no  attempt  was 
made  to  report  the  debates  until  1763.  There  are  rea- 
sons to  believe  that  Flood  at  first  abstained  from  par- 
ticipation in  the  debates  and  devoted  himself  to  a 
study  of  the  usages  of  the  house.  His  first  appearance 
on  the  floor  grew  out  of  the  motion  that  Portugal, 
then  at  war  with  Spain,  be  permitted  to  raise  a  regi- 
ment of  Catholics  in  Ireland.  In  opposing  the  motion 
Flood  made  an  eloquent  and  startlingly  severe  attack 
on  the  whole  administration  of  the  government  and 


8  JHE    IRISH   ORATORS 

called  down  upon  his  head  the  bitter  resentment  of  the 

ministry  while  winning  the  approbation  of  the  public. 
The  first  authentic  record  of  his  entrance  into  the  de- 
bate was  on  October  12,  1763,  when  he  stunned  the 
house  with  a  brilliant  speech  of  sarcasm  and  invective 
aimed  directly  at  the  corruption  of  the  members.  This 
speech  marked  an  epoch.  Lucas  had  preached  princi- 
ples to  ears  of  stone,  and  Malone  had  spoken  of  the 
principles  of  liberty  to  ears  that  refused  to  understand, 
but  no  one,  up  to  this  time,  had  dared  stand  in  the 
Irish  parliament  and  point  an  accusing  finger  at  the 
fatal  defect  in  the  Irish  institution.  If  this  speech 
created  concern  among  the  beneficiaries  of  the  "sys- 
tem," Flood's  second  philippic  delivered  less  than  a 
month  afterward  and  directed  at  the  pensioning  policy 
of  the  Castle,  caused  something  akin  to  consternation. 
It  served  notice  on  the  government  that  in  the  elo- 
quent young  aristocrat  it  had  found  a  man  vrith  whom 
it  would  have  to  reckon  after  a  fashion  then  unknow^n 
in  Irish  administration. 

Through  the  persistency  of  his  opposition  and  the 
boldness  of  his  assaults  upon  the  corruption  of  the 
times.  Flood  gradually  made  inroads  on  the  strength 
of  the  Undertakers,  and  created  an  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  parliament  on  the  part  of  the  people.  He 
soon  established  the  reputation  of  being  the  most 
eloquent  man  that  Ireland  had  produced.  He  had  in- 
troduced into  the  Irish  parliament  that  rhetorical  elo- 
quence which  was  then  in  full  flower  in  Saint  Stephens. 
He  had  created  animosities  on  the  part  of  the  pen- 
sioners that  pursued  him  through  life  and  then  perse- 
cuted his  memory.  During  this  period  he  made  no 
effort  to  create  a  party.    He  was  engaged  in  sha^' ering 


Henry   Flood 

Taken  from  a  painting  by  Commerford  in  the  possession  of  the 

University  of  Dublin 


HENRY   FLOOD  9 

the  power  of  the  Undertakers  and  in  arousing  that 
pubHc  opinion  upon  which  he  was  to  lean  so  heavily  in 
his  battles  of  the  future.  He  had  made  many  ardent 
friends  and  admirers  upon  whom  he  could  depend  in 
any  organized  fight  he  might  determine  to  make. 

During  these  preliminary  3^ears  he  was  diverted  for 
a  season  from  his  parliamentary  labor  through  his 
marriage  to  a  lady  of  great  fortune,  and  for  a  time  he 
retired  from  politics  and  sought  pleasure  in  agricul- 
tural pursuits  at  Farmley.  This  period  was  also  a 
period  of  preparation.  It  gave  him  time  for  reflection 
and  for  the  further  cultivation  of  his  natural  and  ac- 
quired talents.  His  home  became  the  rendezvous  of 
some  of  the  most  brilliant  men  that  Ireland  has  pro- 
duced. He  surrounded  himself  with  celebrities  of  the 
political  and  literary  world  and  it  is  here  that  we  first 
learn  of  his  association  with  Henry  Grattan  and  Sir 
Hercules  Langrishe.  A  great  intimacy  grew  up  be- 
tween them.  They  discussed  politics  and  studied  ora- 
tory as  assiduously  as  youths,  writing  and  exchang- 
ing their  compositions  for  the  purposes  of  criticism, 
and  even  entering  into  formal  disputations  after  the 
manner  of  a  debating  society.  No  doubt  the  eloquence 
of  these  wonderful  men  which  shone  so  brilliantly  a 
few  years  later  was  burnished  during  these  Attic 
nights  and  days  in  the  rural  seclusion  of  Farmley. 
And  possibly  something  of  grace  and  effectiveness  was 
imparted  to  the  dramatic  phases  of  their  delivery  by 
the  private  theatricals  with  which  they  amused  them- 
selves. What  a  fascinating  picture  some  artist  would 
have  handed  down  to  posterity  could  he  have  caught 
them  at  the  hour  when  Flood  was  playing  Macbeth  to 
Grattan's  Macduff!    The  idyllic  life  at  Farmley  how- 


10  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

ever  could  not  continue  long  for  one  of  Flood's  nerv- 
ous energy  and  feverish  ambition,  and  he  soon  turned 
his  back,  a  little  sadly  perhaps,  but  permanently,  upon 
the  joys  of  domesticity  to  plunge  with  renewed  energy 
into  the  parliamentary  battles  of  Dublin. 

II 

When  the  Marquis  of  Townsend  was  sent  over  to 
Ireland  as  viceroy  in  1767,  Henry  Flood  began  his 
systematic  agitation  for  the  amelioration  of  the  condi- 
tion and  the  righting  of  the  wrongs  of  his  country. 
When  the  vain  easy-going  viceroy  took  up  his  resi- 
dence at  the  Castle  he  was  forty-three  years  old,  and 
while  he  had  had  no  political  experience  he  had  fought 
at  Fontenoy,  and  had  attempted,  with  some  degree  of 
success,  to  steal  the  laurels  of  Wolfe  at  the  battle  of 
Quebec.  His  family  connections  in  England  were  the 
most  distinguished.  His  intentions  were  probably  the 
best.  His  very  indifference  to  the  dignity  of  his  posi- 
tion gave  promise  of  conciliating  the  masses,  and  his 
.determination  to  make  his  home  in  Dublin,  standing 
out  in  striking  contrast  to  the  policy  of  his  predeces- 
sors, was  expected  to  enhance  his  popularity.  He  was 
a  man  of  the  most  convivial  habits  and  in  the  Dublin 
of  that  day  the  heavy  drinker  had  a  certain  advantage 
in  society.  Aside  from  an  irritating  tendency  to  scrib- 
ble satires  upon  friend  and  foe  alike  there  was  very 
little  about  him,  seen  superficially,  to  justify  the  ex- 
pectation that  he  would  leave  Ireland  one  of  the  most 
thoroughly  hated  rulers  that  ever  occupied  the  Castle. 
The  program  that  he  was  expected  to  carry  out  did  not 
appear  difficult  of  achievement  by  the  ministry,  since 


HENRY   FLOOD  11 

it  embraced  features  that  were  expected  to  meet  witli 
the  hearty  approbation  of  the  people.  He  proposed  to 
augment  the  military  establishment  by  increasing  the 
number  of  soldiers  from  twelve  thousand  to  fifteen 
thousand;  to  place  the  tenure  of  judges  upon  a  consti- 
tutional basis,  and  to  secure  a  limitation  to  the  life  of 
a  parHament.  A  hasty  survey  of  the  field,  however, 
soon  convinced  him  that  the  governmental  measures 
could  not  be  carried  without  a  struggle.  The  country 
was  already  sensitive  on  the  subject  of  the  army,  and 
the  aristocratic  party,  popularly  known  as  the  Under- 
takers, had  found  the  continuation  of  a  parliament 
throughout  a  reign  highly  profitable  and  satisfactory. 
In  preparing  to  push  the  Augmentation  bill,  the  mar- 
quis soon  saw  that  unless  he  could  conciliate  the  lead- 
ing members  of  the  aristocratic  party  he  was  doomed 
to  failure;  and  it  is  claimed  by  J.  R.  Fisher,  whose 
recent  History  of  the  End  of  the  Irish  Parliament  is 
pronouncedly  unfriendly  to  Flood,  that  the  marquis 
entertained  the  hope  of  annexing  the  orator  to  the 
administration.  Whatever  grounds  he  may  have  had 
for  the  entertainment  of  this  view  of  Flood,  he  soon 
found  himself  disillusioned  in  a  manner  that  must 
have  been  maddening  to  one  of  his  arbitrary  disposi- 
tion. It  is  true  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  adminis- 
tration Flood  had  but  very  little  to  say,  albeit  his  dis- 
content was  generally  known. 

The  first  act  of  the  viceroy  was  to  pusH  for  the 
passage  of  the  Limitation  bill,  and  in  this  he  had  the 
hearty  cooperation  of  the  orator,  who  had  a  program 
of  his  own  which  embraced  this  reform.  It  was  not 
the  first  time  this  innovation  had  been  proposed,  and 
on  several  previous  occasions  the  bill  providing  for  the 


12  JHE '  IRISH  'ORATORS 

limitation  of  the  life  of  parliament  had  been  jpassed  Ky 
the  Irish  house  of  commons  and  promptly  vetoed. 
When  Townsend  again  asked  for  its  consideration  it 
was  taken  up  with  celerity  and  passed  with  practical 
unanimity.  This  was  accomplished  through  the  con- 
vergence of  three  powerful  elements,  no  two  of  which 
were  actuated  by  the  same  motives.  The  object  of 
Townsend  was  to  break  the  power  of  the  aristocratic 
party,  which,  notwithstanding  its  corrupt  and  selfish 
tendencies  bore  some  faint  resemblance  to  a  national 
party,  to  the  end  that  he  might  more  arbitrarily  domi- 
nate from  the  Castle ;  the  Undertakers  voted  for  it  in 
the  firm  expectation  that  it  would  again  be  rejected  by 
the  privy  council ;  while  Flood's  idea  was  to  make  the 
house  of  commons  more  responsive  to  the  public  will 
by  forcing  it  to  renew  itself  at  Intervals  through  an 
appeal  to  the  people.  The  Undertakers,  who  could 
easily  have  defeated  the  bill,  soon  found  to  their  cha- 
grin that  they  had  taken  their  pitcher  to  the  well  once 
too  often,  for  the  privy  council,  no  longer  willing  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  popular  indignation,  passed  it  on  to 
England,  where  it  was  amended  slightly  and  accepted. 
This  miscalculation  on  the  part  of  the  Undertakers 
threw  them  into  violent  opposition  and  made  possible 
the  powerful  consolidation  of  opposing  Interests  which 
the  organizing  genius  of  Flood  soon  perfected. 

It  was  immediately  after  this,  when  Townsend  be- 
gan to  press  for  the  passage  of  the  Augmentation  bill, 
that  Henry  Flood  began  to  loom  large  in  Irish  affairs. 
Every  effort  was  made  by  the  government  to  meet  the 
objections  of  the  opposition,  and  It  was  agreed  that 
Ireland  should  never  again  be  denuded  of  troops,  and 
that  there  should  never  be  less  than  twelve  thousand 


HENRY   FLOOD  13 

retained  without  the  explicit  consent  of  the  Irish  par- 
liament. The  aristocratic  party,  however,  was  not  to 
be  conciliated  by  such  concessions.  Its  resentment  be- 
cause of  the  passage  of  the  Limitation  bill  had  not 
died  down.  It  was  prepared  to  follow  any  leader  into 
a  general  policy  of  opposition.  Thus  when  Flood 
boldly  pronounced  against  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  troops  and  moved  the  rejection  of  the  bill,  the  entire 
body  of  the  Undertakers  fell  in  behind  him  and  the 
government  was  overwhelmingly  defeated. 

Because  of  this  connection  between  the  corruption- 
ists  of  the  aristocratic  party  and  Flood,  it  has  been  the 
policy  of  English  historians  to  ascribe  to  the  orator  the 
same  base  motives  that  controlled  the  Undertakers. 
Nothing  could  be  more  imjust.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  Townsend  regime  Flood  formulated  a  patriotic 
program  providing  for  the  limitations  of  the  life  of 
parliament,  the  reduction  of  the  pension  list,  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  national  militia,  and  the  complete  legis- 
lative independence  of  Ireland.  Never  for  a  moment, 
while  Townsend  held  office,  did  the  patriotic  leader 
waver  in  his  determination  to  give  practical  effect  to 
his  program,  and  it  would  have  been  the  acme  of  as- 
ininity  for  him  to  have  refused  the  cooperation  of  the 
Undertakers,  no  matter  how  unworthy  their  motives. 
The  cause  he  espoused  was  good.  It  was  nothing  less 
than  the  cause  of  Ireland.  The  accomplishment  of  his 
purpose  would  undoubtedly  have  redounded  to  the 
benefit  of  the  nation.  He  found  himself  a  member  of 
a  legislative  body  that  was  literally  honeycombed  with 
corruption,  and  utterly  helpless  to  get  results  without 
the  support  of  men  of  low  political  ethics.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  house  who  were  above  approach,  were  in  a 


14       '  ^THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

miserable  minority,  and,  like  the  practical  politician 
that  he  was,  he  built  up,  for  the  first  time,  a  real  party 
of  opposition  through  which  he  was  enabled  to  accom- 
plish infinite  good.  We  shall  find  later  on  that  this 
alliance  was  merely  temporary  and  that  Flood  and  his 
allies  were  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles  In  their  concep- 
tion of  patriotic  duty. 

Infuriated  by  the  frustration  of  his  plans,  the  irate 
Townsend  demanded  the  Immediate  dissolution  of 
parliament,  and  began  to  lay  his  lines  to  break  the 
power  of  the  aristocratic  party  In  the  elections.  Dur- 
ing the  Interval,  he  resorted  to  every  method  at  his 
command  to  bring  In  a  government  majority.  Peers 
were  created,  special  favors  were  bestowed,  and  the 
functions  of  his  office  were  shamelessly  prostituted  to 
the  purchase  of  support.  It  appears  that  he  looked 
forward  with  confidence  to  the  new  parliament  which 
convened  in  October,  1769,  but  he  soon  found  himself 
sadly  at  sea.  In  his  letters  of  this  period  we  find  him 
complaining  of  the  cold  and  distant  attitude  of  the 
parliamentary  leaders  and  their  contemptuous  treat- 
ment of  his  office.  Thoroughly  aroused,  he  determined 
to  resort  to  Intimidation,  and  men  holding  government 
positions  were  called  to  the  Castle  and  threatened  with 
dismissal  in  the  event  they  failed  to  support  govern- 
ment measures.  These  men,  still  smarting  under  the 
recollection  of  the  Limitation  bill,  listened  coldly  and 
made  no  promises. 

The  test  of  strength  came  with  the  effort  to  pass  the 
Money  bill.  It  had  long  been  the  desire  of  the  house 
to  obtain  for  parliament  a  complete  control  over  the 
purse,  and  there  had  been  a  growing  resentment  of  the 
policy  of  altering  money  bills  in  England.    The  Money 


HENRY   FLOOD  IS 

bill  of  1769  originated,  as  usual,  in  the  privy  council 
and  was  sent  down  to  the  house  for  ratification.  The 
moment  it  was  read,  Henry  Flood,  now  the  acknowl- 
edged head  of  the  opposition  to  the  government, 
promptly  rose  in  his  place  and  moved  the  rejection  of 
the  bill  on  the  ground  that  it  had  not  originated  with 
the  members  of  the  house,  and  without  further  discus- 
sion it  was  defeated.  Then,  as  a  manifestation  of  loy- 
alty to  the  crown,  the  house  voted  large  supplies  and 
passed  the  Augmentation  bill. 

This  was  the  first  open  declaration  of  war  on  a 
fundamental  or  constitutional  principle — and  the  battle 
for  Irish  independence  has  been  on  from  that  hour  to 
this. 

The  blow  was  a  severe  one,  and  Townsend,  wild 
with  indignation,  hurried  down  to  the  house,  and  after 
delivering  an  abusive  harangue,  he  prorogued  the  par- 
liament regardless  of  the  fact  that  much  important 
public  business  was  pending. 

Never  before  had  the  Irish  people  been  so  thor- 
oughly stirred  as  during  the  fourteen  months  that  in- 
tervened before  parliament  was  again  called  together. 
The  bold  manner  in  which  Flood  had  defied  authority ; 
the  publicity  that  he  had  succeeded  in  giving  to  his  pro- 
gram of  reform,  the  arbitrary  manner  in  which  the 
viceroy  had  dismissed  the  representatives  of  the  na- 
tion, all  conspired  to  create  an  instrumentality  of 
power  that  had  not  existed  since  the  death  of  Swift — 
a  virile,  enlightened,  public  opinion.  It  w^as  to  this 
that  Flood  now  turned  his  attention,  and  we  shall  find 
that  throughout  his  subsequent  career,  it  was  upon 
this  that  he  depended.  He  knew  as  well  as  the  modern 
English  historians,  the  miserable  character  of  the  per- 


16  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

sonnel  of  the  opposition  he  had  consolidated.  He 
knew  the  power  of  pensions  and  of  patronage  in  cut- 
ting the  ground  from  under  him  within  the  house  of 
commons.  He  doubtless  had  a  profound  contempt  for 
the  average  member  of  parhament.  His  plan,  there- 
fore, was  to  strengthen  himself  and  the  patriotic  party, 
by  bringing  an  enlightened  and  determined  public 
opinion  to  bear  upon  the  "den  of  thieves."  And  in 
this  work  he  had  as  collaborators  none  less  than 
Henry  Grattan  and  Sir  Hercules  Langrishe. 

About  this  time  a  famous  series  of  satirical  letters 
began  to  appear  in  The  Freeman,  the  bitterness  and 
brilliancy  of  which  soon  made  a  deep  impression  upon 
the  country.  We  are  interested  especially  in  the  con- 
tributions of  Flood.  In  looking  over  them  in  this  day 
of  moderation  one  is  instantly  impressed  with  the  fe- 
rocity of  the  attacks.  He  used  the  meat  ax  rather  than 
the  sword. 

However  while  Flood  and  his  followers  were  busily 
engaged  in  organizing,  through  their  satires,  an  en- 
lightened public  opinion  against  the  viceroy,  the  inter- 
val preceding  the  parliament  of  1771  was  utilized  by 
Townsend  in  buying  government  support  with  the 
means  at  his  command.  It  is  said  that  not  less  than 
half  a  million  was  spent  in  rounding  up  a  government 
majority.  Peerages,  pensions,  places,  promises,  intim- 
idations, were  marshaled  by  the  viceroy  into  an  in- 
vincible army  of  defense,  and  when  parliament  met 
Townsend  felt  assured  of  easy  sailing.  This  sense  of 
jubilation  was  accentuated  by  the  action  of  the  house 
in  proposing  and  passing  a  congratulatory  address  to 
the  viceroy.  This  act  of  sycophancy  was  fiot  per- 
mitted to  go  unopposed  however,  and  again  we  find 


HENRY    FLOOD  17 

Flood  meeting  with  spirit  his  obHgations  as  a  leader 
of  opposition  by  assaiHng  the  proposal  with  an  au- 
dacity then  unique  in  Irish  politics.  His  general  style 
of  aiming  directly  at  the  bull's  eye  was  not  set  aside  in 
this  instance,  as  shown  by  his  personal  attack  upon 
Lord  Townsend : 


"I  am  not  in  any  wise  amazed,"  he  said,  "that  those 
who  are  under  obligations  to  Lord  Townsend  should  at- 
tempt to  defend  his  conduct.  Gratitude  exacts  this  duty 
from  them,  and  the  debt,  though  paid  at  the  expense  of 
their  integrity,  yet  the  justice  of  this  private  virtue  may 
seemingly  account  for;  but  as  I  am  under  no  such  com- 
pliment to  that  noble  lord  I  will  speak  my  thoughts  with 
freedom  and  express  my  sentiments  unawed.  For  my 
part,  I  have  ever  opposed  the  administration  of  Lord 
Townsend,  not  from  personal  pique  or  private  spleen, 
but  from  a  manifest,  from  a  warranted  conviction  that 
he  had  acted  wrong.  I  have,  since  the  opening  of  the 
session,  rather  been  silent  on  his  conduct,  because  I 
wished  those  wounds  which  he  gave  my  country  might 
be  healed,  and  that  a  name  so  hateful  to  the  virtuous 
part  of  this  house  might  be  buried  in  oblivion.  But  when 
I  find  unmerited  applause  bestowed,  unjust  panegyric 
given,  and  that  he  who  deserves  the  severest  censure  is 
adorned  with  laurels,  I  can  not  patiently  sit,  and  silently 
listen.  A  gentleman  on  my  left  (Mr.  Agar)  has  called 
the  noble  lord  to  order  because  he  has  dared  to  speak 
against  his  patron.  Who  was  it  first  began  the  theme? 
I  appeal  to  the  house  if  from  the  government  side  the 
altercation  did  not  originate.  An  honorable  member  op- 
posite me  first  mentioned  Lord  Townsend ;  I  did  not ; 
nor  did  any  of  my  friends;  they  brought  him  forward 
and  are  answerable  for  what  has  been  or  what  may  be 
said  of  him.  It  has  been  observed  in  this  now  absent 
lord's  praise  that  the  most  salutary  laws  we  ever  expe- 
rienced owed  their  enactment  to  him.  I  deny  it.  I  speak 
with  confidence,  nor  am  I  apt  to  tell  untruths.    The  Lim- 


18  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

itatlon  bill,  which  has  been  so  loudly  echoed  as  his  deed, 
he  derives  not  the  slightest  merit  from.  It  was  I  who 
first  gave  the  assisting  hand  to  that  excellent  law;  nor 
am  I  ashamed  to  pay  myself  the  compliment;  for  honest 
fame  is  the  just  reward  of  an  upright  heart,  and  I  am 
not  averse  to  the  gift.  I  followed  the  bill  to  the  other 
side,  and  when  it  was  the  doubt  of  the  minister  whether 
it  should  pass,  I  told  him  the  arguments  that  were  its 
foundation ;  in  this  I  was  backed  by  Lord  Chatham,  and 
the  minister  allowed  them  unanswerable.  I  therefore  do 
aver  that  from  this  transaction  Lord  Townsend  can  not 
expect  the  shadow  of  honor.  I  speak  truly  for  I  am 
afraid  of  no  man.  I  seek  no  favor  but  the  applause  that 
may  flow  from  performing  my  duty.  I  am  under  no  ob- 
ligations to  this  or  that  viceroy :  and  I  believe  I  may  say 
that  I  rejected  proffered  benefits.  I  shall  now  only  re- 
mark that  from  every  observation  I  could  make — Lord 
Townsend  acted  as  an  enemy,  to  our  country,  to  our  con- 
stitution, and  our  liberties ;  for  which  reason,  instead  of 
panegyric,  he  should,  by  every  real  friend  of  Ireland,  be 
treated  as  a  public  malefactor." 

It  was  through  the  use  of  such  language  that  Flood, 
during  the  whole  of  the  Townsend  administration  be- 
came as  much  of  a  terror  to  the  corruptionists  of 
Ireland  as  Chatham  had  been  to  those  of  the  days  of 
Walpole  across  the  channel.  The  speech  just  quoted 
did  not  prevent  the  passage  of  the  address,  but  it  did 
have  a  demoralizing  effect  upon  the  Castle  minions  to 
whom  it  brought  the  realization  that  Flood  proposed 
to  continue  the  struggle  and  to  expose  to  the  public 
the  mercenaries  of  the  viceroy.  During  the  first  few 
days  of  the  session  all  the  divisions  were  carried  by 
the  government,  but  when  the  altered  Money  bill  was 
brought  in  and  Flood  led  another  fight  against  it  on 
the  ground  that  it  did  not  originate  in  the  house,  he 


HENRY    FLOOD  19 

led  a  triumphant  army,  enough  of  the  bought  and  paid 
for  members  coming  over  to  prevent  its  acceptance. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Tovv-nsend,  now  thor- 
oughly desperate,  proposed  to  increase  the  membership 
of  the  Commission  of  Revenue,  who  sat  in  the  house 
of  commons,  from  seven  to  twelve  with  the  view  to 
adding  five  government  supporters;  and  when  Flood 
moved  the  rejection  of  the  proposal  on  the  ground 
that  seven  were  sufficient,  the  viceroy  decided  to  force 
the  fighting  by  increasing  the  membership  without  the 
consent  of  parliament.  This  aroused  the  country  to  a 
white  heat  of  indignation.  The  constant  agitation  of 
Flood  had  prepared  the  nation  for  just  such  a  recep- 
tion of  such  news.  The  unpopularity  of  Townsend 
grew  apace.  And  when  the  house  passed  several  votes 
of  censure  upon  the  viceroy  because  of  his  official 
conduct,  Townsend,  in  unutterable  disgust,  threw  up 
his  office,  and  indignantly  returned  to  England. 

At  this  time  Henry  Flood  stood  upon  the  pinnacle 
of  his  glory.  No  man  in  the  history  of  Ireland  had 
ever  before  been  able  to  wield  such  power.  His  elo- 
quence, surpassing  that  of  any  other  man  his  country 
had  brought  forth,  had  made  him  the  popular  idol. 
No  greater  master  of  parliamentary  tactics  had  ever 
occupied  a  seat  in  the  house.  Regardless  of  the  poor 
quality  of  material  at  hand,  he  had  built  up  for  the 
first  time  an  organized  and  definite  opposition  to  the 
government.  He  had  aroused  in  the  people  an  interest 
in  parliamentary  discussions  and  the  proceedings  of 
the  house  that  had  never  before  existed.  He  had 
given  proof  of  statesmanlike  qualities  by  placing  be- 
fore the  nation  a  definite  program  and  he  had  forced 
the  consummation  of  a  portion  of  his  plans.    Without 


20  lTHE   IRISH   ORATORS 

an  office,  he  had  unhorsed  a  viceroy  and  made  his  name 
familiar  not  only  in  Ireland,  but  in  the  ministerial 
conferences  of  London.  And  when  in  1772  he  paid 
a  visit  to  London  to  urge  upon  Lord  North  the  com- 
mercial rights  of  Ireland  and  the  necessity  for  an 
absentee  tax,  he  was  received  with  marked  respect  by 
the  leading  men  of  the  empire.  Had  he  passed  from 
the  scene  at  this  time  his  course  would  have  appeared, 
to  posterity,  consistent  throughout. 

Ill 

When  Lord  Harcourt  went  over  to  Ireland  to  take 
up  the  w^ork  abandoned  by  Townsend  it  was  with  the 
intention  of  winning  by  conciliation.  The  pictures  we 
have  of  this  nobleman  are  not  such  as  to  justify  the 
least  expectation  of  brilliant  success.  He  had  served 
as  ambassador  at  Versailles,  w^here  he  had  become 
adept  in  the  gentle  art  of  kissing  milady's  hand,  an 
art  not  especially  useful  in  Dublin  Castle.  He  appears 
to  have  been  an  easy-going,  conciliatory,  well-meaning 
sort  of  man  of  colorless  character,  who  soon  found  it 
to  his  pleasure  to  leave  the  prosy  duties  of  his  position 
to  Blanquiere,  the  secretary,  whose  amazing  capacity 
for  the  consumption  of  liquor,  and  tact  in  cultivating 
the  house  of  commons  were  expected  to  popularize  the 
administration  and  smooth  away  the  rough  places  in 
the  road.  The  one  ambition  of  the  new  viceroy,  in 
which  he  appears  to  have  taken  a  genuine  interest,  was 
to  conciliate  and  capture  Henry  Flood. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Harcourt  administration 
we  find  the  conduct  of  Flood  to  be  such  as  to  have 
caused  considerable  concern  to  his  real  friends.     In 


HENRY   FLOOD  21 

common  with  all  the  leaders  of  opposition  he  attended 
the  first  levee  at  the  Castle  and  manifested  a  friendly 
feeling  for  the  new  viceroy.  This  was  followed  by 
peculiar  action  in  the  house.  It  appears  that  he  sup- 
ported the  government  from  the  beginning,  albeit  at 
first  in  an  entirely  independent  manner.  At  times  his 
absence  from  the  house  attracted  unfavorable  com- 
ment, especially  when  the  interests  of  his  country  de- 
manded his  presence.  The  absence  and  indifference  of 
the  leader  had  its  inevitable  effect  upon  the  army  and 
it  fell  into  a  state  of  utter  demoralization.  His  friends 
became  alarmed.  Lord  Charlemont,  the  most  devoted 
friend  he  ever  had,  appears  to  have  remonstrated  with 
him  earnestly  and  without  effect.  Finally  he  accepted 
office  under  Harcourt,  taking  the  lucrative  position  of 
vice-treasurer  of  Ireland  with  a  seat  in  the  privy 
council.  Henceforth  during  the  remainder  of  the 
Harcourt  regime  he  was  silent  for  the  most  part  and 
pitifully  evasive  when  he  was  not  silent.  This  injects 
the  one  big  interrogation  point  into  his  career.  Was 
he  a  traitor  to  his  country,  or  was  he  true  to  himself? 
It  has  been  the  contention  of  Flood's  admirers  that 
he  was  amply  justified  in  accepting  office.  The  most 
damaging  evidence  against  him  is  to  be  found  in  the 
correspondence  of  government  officials  during  that 
period.  In  The  End  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  Mr. 
Fisher  has  made  out  a  pretty  strong  case  for  the  plain- 
tiff. There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  but  that  Harcourt 
authorized  Blanquiere  to  find  an  office  of  sufficient 
importance  to  satisfy  Flood  and  that  there  was  a  long 
delay  in  the  matter  due  in  part  to  the  unfriendly  atti- 
tude of  the  secretary  toward  the  orator.  It  is  now 
established  that  Flood  was  in  complete  accord  with  the 


22  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

arrangement  and  that  he  looked  longingly  toward  the 
very  important  position  of  provost  of  Trinity  College. 
His  failure  to  get  this  place  appears  to  have  soured 
him,  and  if  we  are  to  credit  the  letters  of  Harcourt,  he 
became  very  insistent  upon  recognition.  In  one  of  his 
letters  to  England  written  at  this  time  Harcourt^says : 

"Mr.  Flood  is  greatly  offended.  I  saw  him  yesterday 
and  he  complained  most  bitterly.  He  took  occasion  to 
put  forth  his  important  services  which  he  thought  justly 
entitled  him  to  preferment  which  had  been  given  to  Mr. 
Hutchinson  (provost  of  Trinity)  without  even  making 
him  a  tender  of  it.  He  laid  great  stress  upon  the  diffi- 
culties and  obstructions  he  could  have  thrown  in  the 
way  had  he  been  disposed  to  be  adverse." 

This  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  he  was 
"pressed"  to  take  office.  It  indicates,  rather,  that  he 
not  only  had  reached  a  groveling  and  whining  stage 
but  that  he  was  not  above  a  certain  kind  of  blackmail. 
About  this  time  he  indicated  to  Harcourt  that  he  was 
"done  with  the  Castle"  and  complained  that  it  was 
"humiliating  for  a  patriot  to  lose  his  reputation  by  de- 
serting to  the  government  and  then  fail  to  get  a  place." 
The  viceroy  appealed  to  London  for  assistance  and 
Lord  North,  who  sympathized  with  his  embarrass- 
ment, suggested  reviving  the  position  of  president  of 
Munster,  with  no  duties  and  an  attractive  salary,  but 
Harcourt  rejected  the  suggestion  and  insisted  upon 
one  of  the  three  vice-treasurer  ships  which  had  always 
gone  to  Englishmen  and  were  desired  by  North  for 
his  own  friends.  At  length,  however,  North  yielded 
to  the  importunities  of  the  viceroy  and  the  offer  was 
made  to  the  now  irritated  Flood.    "The  acquisition  of 


HENRY    FLOOD  23 

Mr.  Flood,  circumstanced  as  things  are,"  wrote  Har- 
court  to  North,  "can  not  be  purchased  at  too  dear  a 
price."  When  the  proposition  was  made.  Flood,  now 
grown  peevish  by  the  long  delay  in  the  negotiations, 
at  first  refused;  then  he  agreed  to  accept  provided  the 
salary  should  be  thrown  upon  England  rather  than 
Ireland ;  and  finally  he  accepted  unconditionally. 

"Since  I  was  born,"  wrote  the  easy-going  Harcourt, 
"I  never  had  to  deal  with  so  difficult  a  man,  owing 
principally  to  his  high-strained  ideas  of  his  own  in- 
fluence and  popularity."  The  evidence  of  Flood's 
unpopularity  with  the  government  is  not  confined  by 
any  means  to  the  above  quotation.  In  the  alphabetical 
list  of  members  of  the  house,  prepared  by  the  secre- 
tary, we  find  the  following  unfavorable  description  of 
Flood  opposite  his  name :  "Formerly  engineer  and 
mouthpiece  of  the  opposition.  Impractical  in  his  con- 
duct in  parliament,  in  private  life  held  in  abhorrence 
and  detestation  by  all  men  of  integrity  and  truth. 
When  Lord  Harcourt  arrived  Flood  affected  candor 
and  promised  support.  Upon  some  important  ques- 
tions he  supported;  upon  others,  equally  material  to 
government,  he  kept  away.  In  consequence  of  this 
conduct  a  promise  of  some  considerable  employment 
was  held  out  to  him." 

Still  another  side-light  on  Harcourt's  attitude  to- 
ward him  is  found  in  the  trick  played  him  in  connec- 
tion with  the  viceroy's  proposal  to  raise  money  for  the 
government  by  taxing  the  rents  of  absentee  landlords. 
This  proposal  encountered  the  most  acrimonious  oppo- 
sition In  England,  and  Burke  drew  up,  on  behalf  of 
the  Whigs,  a  strong  remonstrance  which  convinced  the 
government  of  the  necessity  of  abandoning  the  meas- 


24  CTHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

lire.  The  problem  was  how  to  kill  it  without  embar- 
rassment to  the  viceroy.  In  one  of  his  letters  of  this 
period  Harcourt  writes  that  "a  certain  wild,  inconsist- 
ent gentleman  will  be  put  up  in  the  house  to  propose 
it  and  that  will  be  sufficient  to  damn  it.''  The  "wild, 
inconsistent  gentleman"  was  Flood!  He  had  always 
been  a  consistent  advocate  of  an  absentee  tax,  and  the 
passage  of  such  a  measure  by  the  Harcourt  adminis- 
tration would  furnish  a  plausible  excuse  for  accepting 
office  under  it.  The  probability  is  that  he  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  treachery  of  Harcourt  and  it  is  certain  that 
he  spoke  in  favor  of  the  tax  with  surpassing  brilliancy. 
Harcourt,  writing  of  this  speech  says :  "Mr.  Flood  was 
violent  and  able  in  behalf  of  the  measure  in  a  degree 
almost  surpassing  everything  he  has  ever  uttered 
before." 

On  the  part  of  the  defense  much  of  a  plausible  na- 
ture has  been  written  by  friendly  historians.  The  point 
is  made  that  Flood  had  only  found  an  opposition 
party  of  effective  force  possible  through  the  temporary 
alliance  with  the  Undertakers  whose  disrelish  for 
Townsend  did  not  extend  to  the  new  viceroy.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  moment  Harcourt  appeared  the  Under- 
takers who  had  affiliated  with  Flood  were  quick  to 
make  their  peace  with  the  new  officials.  With  an  ade- 
quate opposition  impossible  in  the  house  and  without 
sufficient  support  from  public  opinion  without.  Flood 
concluded  that  the  patriotic  thing  to  do  would  be  to  go 
inside  the  government  and  do  the  best  possible  for  the 
country.  The  claim  is  made  that  Flood,  knowing 
something  of  the  easy-going  character  of  Harcourt, 
believed  that  within  a  short  time  he  would  be  able  to 
dominate  the  government  from  within.    In  the  early 


HENRY    FLOOD  25 

days  of  the  administration  several  concessions  were 
made  that  are  ascribed  by  the  admirers  of  Flood  to  his 
presence  in  the  privy  council.  The  commissioners  of 
revenue  on  which  he  had  fought  Townsend  were  abol- 
ished, and  the  boards  of  customs  and  excise  which 
had  been  divided  against  Flood's  opposition  were  re- 
united. The  public  at  large  had  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  Harcourt  had  sincerely  supported  the 
absentee  tax  for  which  Flood  had  fought  from  his 
entrance  in  public  life.  Some  commercial  restrictions 
opposed  by  Flood  were  removed,  and  a  bounty  on  the 
export  of  Irish  corn,  advocated  by  Flood,  was  carried. 
Flood  always  contended  in  later  life  that  he  had  ex- 
erted himself  to  the  utmost  while  a  member  of  the 
privy  council  to  give  a  liberal  trend  to  the  admin- 
istration. 

As  a  set-off  to  the  good  accomplished  by  the  Har- 
court regime  through  the  probable  influence  of  Flood 
many  unpopular  features  developed  for  w^hich  he  had 
to  share  responsibility.  The  most  unfortunate  of 
these  perhaps  was  the  action  of  the  Irish  government 
in  authorizing  the  contribution  of  troops  to  aid  in  put- 
ting down  the  American  colonies.  The  admirers  of 
Flood  will  ahvays  regret  that  he  threw  himself  so  zeal- 
ously into  the  fight  against  the  colonies.  He  appears 
to  have  become  an  ardent  champion  of  the  empire  at 
this  juncture  and  in  his  speeches  he  impressively 
w^arned  the  government  that  if  the  colonies  should  be 
permitted  their  freedom  "destruction  will  come  upon 
the  British  empire  like  the  coldness  of  death,  will  creep 
upon  it  from  the  extreme  parts."  He  gave  a  rather 
fantastic  description  of  the  troops  to  be  sent  from 
Ireland,     They  were  to  go  as  "armed  negotiators," 


26  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Flood^s  speech  against  the  Americans  was  described  by 
Harcourt  as  "great  and  able." 

When  in  1776  Harcourt  retired  and  was  succeeded 
by  the  Earl  of  Buckinghamshire,  Flood  continued  in 
office,  although  he  appears  to  have  found  the  govern- 
mental atmosphere  less  congenial.  He  complained  that 
he  was  being  treated  as  a  *'mere  placeman,"  and  he 
began  to  absent  himself  more  and  more  from  the  privy 
council.  Notwithstanding  his  dissatisfaction  he  con- 
tinued in  office,  though  he  sat  in  his  seat  in  the  house 
silent,  morose  and  disappointed. 

When  parliament  met  in  1779  the  condition  of  Ire- 
land was  all  but  desperate,  as  a  result  of  the  embargo, 
and  after  a  series  of  meetings  throughout  the  country 
where  demands  were  made  for  free  trade,  Grattan 
moved  an  amendment  to  the  address  concluding  with 
the  demand  for  "free  exports."  During  the  course  of 
the  discussion  Flood  manifested  the  keenest  interest, 
and  his  suggestion  that  the  words  "free  trade"  be  sub- 
stituted for  "free  exports"  was  adopted  and  carried 
with  the  aid  of  his  vote.  This  was  the  most  serious 
defection  the  government  had  encountered  and  it  made 
the  position  of  Flood  in  office  scarcely  more  tenable. 
However,  he  continued  to  hold  on,  while  allying  him- 
self more  and  more  with  the  opposition  to  measures  of 
vital  importance,  until  1780  when  the  government 
manifested  its  displeasure  by  dismissing  him  from  the 
privy  council. 

This  marks  the  end  of  the  most  unsatisfactory 
period  in  the  long  career  of  Henry  Flood.  In  conclud- 
ing this  portion  of  his  life  it  is  but  fair  to  record  his 
own  explanation  of  his  course  during  the  Harcourt 
and  Buckingham  administrations,  offered  in  his  mas- 


HENRY    FLOOD  27 

terful  defense  of  his  political  life  in  reply  to  the  attack 
by  Henry  Grattan. 

"I  come  now,"  he  said,  "to  the  period  in  which  Lord 
Harcourt  governed,  and  which  is  stigmatized  by  the 
word  Venal/  If  every  man  who  accepts  an  office  is 
venal  and  an  apostate,  I  certainly  can  not  acquit  myself 
of  the  charge,  nor  is  it  necessary.  If  it  be  a  crime 
universally,  let  it  be  universally  ascribed ;  but  it  is  not 
fair  that  one  set  of  men  should  be  treated  by  that  hon- 
orable member  as  great  friends  and  lovers  of  their 
country,  notwithstanding  they  are  in  office,  and  another 
set  of  men  should  be  treated  as  enemies  and  apostates. 
What  is  the  truth?  Everything  of  this  sort  depends 
on  the  principles  on  which  the  office  is  taken,  and  on 
which  it  is  retained.  With  regard  to  myself  let  no  man 
imagine  I  am  preaching  up  a  doctrine  for  my  own  con- 
venience; there  is  no  man  in  this  house  less  concerned 
in  the  propagation  of  it.  I  beg  leave  to  state  briefly 
the  manner  in  which  I  accepted  the  vice-treasurership : 

"It  was  offered  me  in  the  most  honorable  manner, 
with  the  assurance  not  only  of  being  a  placeman  for 
my  own  profit,  but  a  minister  for  the  benefit  of  my 
country.  My  answer  was  that  I  thought  in  a  constitu- 
tion such  as  the  British  an  intercourse  between  the 
prince  and  the  subject  ought  to  be  honorable.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  being  a  minister  ought  to  redound  to  a 
man's  credit,  though  I  lament  to  say  it  often  happens 
otherwise;  men  in  office  frequently  forget  those  prin- 
ciples which  they  maintained  before.  I  mentioned  the 
public  principles  which  I  held,  and  added,  if  consistently 
with  them,  from  an  atom  of  which  I  could  not  depart, 
I  could  be  of  service  to  his  majesty's  government,  I 
was  ready  to  render  it.  I  now  speak  in  the  presence 
of  men  who  know  what  I  say.  After  the  appointment 
had  come  over  to  this  kingdom,  I  sent  in  writing  to  the 
chief  governor  that  I  could  not  accept  it  unless  on  my 
own  stipulations.     Thus,  sir,  I  took  office.     .     .     . 

"In  Lord  Harcourt's  administration  what  did  I  do? 


28  PTHE   IRISH   DRATORS 

I  had  the  board  of  commissioners  reduced  to  one,  by 
which  a  saving  of  twenty  thousand  pounds  a  year  was 
effected.  I  went  further,  I  insisted  on  having  every 
altered  money  bill  thrown  out,  and  privy  council  bills 
not  defended  by  the  crown.  Thus,  instead  of  giving 
sanction  to  the  measures  I  had  opposed,  my  conduct 
was  in  fact  to  register  my  principles  in  the  records  of 
the  court — to  make  the  privy  council  witness  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  parliament  and  give  final  energy  to  the 
tenets  with  which  I  commenced  my  public  life.  The 
right  honorable  member  who  has  censured  me,  in  order 
to  deprecate  that  economy,  said  that  Sve  have  swept 
with  the  feather  of  economy  the  pens  and  papers  off 
our  table' — a  pointed  and  brilliant  expression  which  is 
far  from  a  just  argument.  This  country  had  no  rea- 
son to  be  ashamed  of  that  species  of  economy,  when 
the  great  nation  of  Britain  had  been  obliged  to  descend 
to  a  system  as  minute ;  it  was  not  my  fault  if  infinitely 
more  was  not  done.  If  administrations  were  wrong 
on  the  absentee  tax,  they  were  wrong  with  the  preju- 
dices of  half  a  century — they  were  wrong  with  every 
great  writer  who  has  treated  of  Irish  affairs.  .  .  . 
To  show  that  I  was  not  under  any  undue  influence  of 
office,  when  the  disposition  of  the  house  was  made  to 
alter  on  the  absentee  tax,  and  when  the  administration 
yielded  to  the  violence  of  parliament,  I  appeal  to  the 
consciousness  and  public  testimony  of  many  present 
whether  I  did  veer  and  turn  with  the  secretary,  or 
whether  I  did  not  make  a  manly  stand  in  its  favor. 
After  having  pledged  myself  to  the  public  I  would 
rather  break  with  a  million  administrations  than  retract  ; 
I  not  only  adhered  to  that  principle,  but,  by  a  singular 
instance  of  exertion,  found  it  a  second  time  under  the 
consideration  of  this  house." 

Upon  this,  his  own  defense,  the  admirers  and  de- 
fenders of  Flood  rest  their  case.  It  is  more  agreeable 
to  accept  it.  It  is  pleasant  to  turn  now  to  contemplate 
him  once  more  in  the  more  heroic  role  of  opposition. 


HENRY    FLOOD  29 

IV 

On  separating  himself  from  the  service  of  the  gov- 
ernment it  is  probable  that  Flood  expected  to  resume 
his  old  place  as  the  leader,  and  acknowledged  leader, 
of  the  opposition,  but  he  soon  realized  with  bitterness 
that  during  his  association  with  the  Castle  others  had 
supplanted  him  in  his  old  role.  Among  the  underlings 
of  the  Castle  he  was  thoroughly  hated  for  what  they 
termed  his  apostacy,  while  the  opposition  members 
either  distrusted  the  sincerity  of  his  reversion  or 
feared  that  he  could  displace  them  in  the  position  of 
leadership.  He  found  himself  literally  without  friends 
in  the  house.  Several  incidents  have  been  recorded  by 
historians  illustrative  of  the  treatment  accorded  to 
him.  In  1779,  in  supporting  Yelverton's  motion  for 
the  repeal  of  Poyning's  law,  he  complained  that  *'after 
twenty  years  of  service  in  the  study  of  this  particular 
question"  he  had  been  superseded,  and  added:  *The 
honorable  gentleman  is  erecting  a  temple  to  liberty. 
I  hope  that  I  at  least  shall  be  allowed  a  niche  in  the 
fane."  It  was  in  response  to  this  that  Yelverton  made 
his  famous  retort:  "If  a  man  should  separate  from 
his  wife,  desert,  and  abandon  her  for  seven  years, 
another  may  take  her  and  give  her  protection." 

Such  was  the  state  of  feeling  when  the  fight  on  the 
question  of  simple  repeal  was  precipitated  by  Flood 
and  the  stage  was  set  for  the  final  and  dramatic  break 
between  the  two  great  orators  and  patriot  leaders  who 
had  studied  their  art  together  years  ago  in  the  classic 
seclusion  of  Farmley.  The  conditions  at  the  time 
were  auspicious  for  a  strike  for  Irish  independence. 
England  was  engaged  in  her  struggle  with  the  colonies. 


30  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

The  people  of  Ireland,  left  without  adequate  protec- 
tion from  French  invasion,  had  taken  upon  themselves 
the  defense  of  their  homes,  and  as  if  by  magic  the 
Volunteers  of  Ireland — one  hundred  thousand  armed 
men — sprang  into  existence.  Had  this  armed  force 
taken  advantage  of  that  opportunity  Ireland  might 
easily  have  repeated  the  performance  of  the  Ameri- 
cans, and  the  ministers  lived  in  extreme  dread  of  the 
possibility.  At  this  juncture  Grattan  moved  his  Decla- 
ration of  Rights,  which  was  adopted  by  the  house, 
which  afterward  marched  in  procession  between  the 
Volunteers  who  lined  the  streets,  to  the  Castle  and 
presented  its  demands.  The  demands  of  Ireland  were 
promptly  and  without  qualification  conceded  by  the 
ministers.  In  a  moment  of  jubilation  Grattan  rose 
and  moved  an  address  of  satisfaction  and  gratitude 
in  which  he  insisted  that  to  ask  anything  further 
would  be  foolish  and  unreasonable  caution.  He  was 
completely  satisfied  with  the  English  recognition  of 
the  independence  of  the  Irish  parliament.  He  hoped 
that  the  concession  would  also  satisfy  the  Volunteers 
and  they  would  promptly  disband.  In  this  he  was 
doomed  to  disappointment. 

The  unpopularity  of  Flood  in  the  house  did  not  ex- 
tend to  the  general  public,  where  he  was  extraordina- 
rily popular  and  especially  with  the  Volunteers,  and 
when  he  startled  the  house  by  standing  forth  in  a  mili- 
tant patriotism,  and  warned  the  country  that  the  mere 
repeal  of  the  Declaration  Act  would  not  suffice  and 
that  nothing  less  than  an  express  act  of  the  English 
parliament  renouncing  for  all  time  the  right  to  legis- 
late for  Ireland  could  be  accepted  he  struck  the  popular 
chord.    His  militant  attitude  aroused  the  greatest  en- 


HENRY   FLOOD  31 

thusiasm  among  the  Volunteers.  The  Lawyers'  Corps 
of  the  organization  passed  resolutions  favorable  to  his 
contention.  The  Belfast  Volunteers  hailed  him  as  the 
legitimate  head  of  the  patriot  movement  in  a  letter  to 
him  urging  him  to  take  the  lead.  "Your  unquestioned 
abilities/'  they  said,  "your  unrivaled  eloquence,  your 
knowledge  which  seems  bounded  only  by  the  limits 
which  the  author  of  our  nature  has  inscribed  for  our 
kind,  and  the  sacrifice  you  have  made  to  serve  your 
country,  oblige  us  to  look  up  to  you  as  one  of  the  first 
of  men."  In  his  reply  Flood  proffered  his  services 
and  the  fight  was  on. 

The  following  incidents  enter  into  the  most  dra- 
matic and  inspiring  period  in  Flood's  career.  The 
house  was  predisposed  against  him  and  the  ministers 
looked  upon  his  demand  as  revolutionary.  Earl  Tem- 
ple, then  viceroy,  writing  to  England,  declared  that  the 
concession  of  the  demands  would  "close  the  account 
forever  between  the  two  kingdoms."  But  the  country, 
seething  with  patriotic  passion,  was  with  Flood,  and 
the  ominous  armed  men,  ready  to  spring  at  the  word, 
were  with  him.  Within  six  weeks  after  writing  the 
warning  to  England  just  quoted.  Temple  was  as  firmly 
convinced  that  England's  only  safety  lay  in  the  sur- 
render to  Flood's  demands.  During  the  interval  a 
decision  in  an  Irish  case  had  been  rendered  by  Lord 
Mansfield  which  conclusively  demonstrated  the  cor- 
rectness of  Flood's  contention,  and  like  the  practical 
politician  that  he  was,  the  orator  made  the  best  possible 
use  of  it  in  the  agitation  he  was  directing  without  the 
walls  of  parliament.  From  his  place  in  the  house 
Flood  led  the  fight  in  speeches  of  unanswerable  elo- 
quence and  in  words  of  Chatham-like  defiance. 


Z2  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

"Ireland  is  an  independent  kingdom,"  he  declared. 
"She  has  a  completely  free  and  supreme  legislature  of 
her  own,  and  has  accordingly  a  full  right  to  enter  into 
commerce,  and  conclude  treaties  with  every  nation  on 
the  globe.  Here  I  set  my  foot;  can  any  man  deny — 
can  any  man  controvert  this  position?  I  call  upon  the 
host  of  crown  lawyers.  Can  even  the  representative  of 
administration  deny  it?  He  dares  not;  and  his  silence 
I  interpret  into  acquiescence.  If  any  man  will  under- 
take to  refute  this  position  with  proofs,  I  will  listen  to 
him;  but  if  any  shall  adduce  mere  arguments  and  opin- 
ions, I  am  ready  to  lacerate  and  explode  them." 


Emboldened  by  the  consciousness  of  the  strength  of 
his  position  he  burst  forth  in  the  following  passage  of 
revolutionary  fire : 


"Our  liberties  were  first  infringed  by  the  detestable 
Stafford,  but  the  cries  of  this  oppressed  country  have 
pursued  and  overtaken  him;  and  I  earnestly  pray  that 
a  like  vengeance  may  light  upon  every  future  tyrant 
who  shall  attack  the  constitution  with  the  high  hand 
of  prerogative,  or  the  slower  sap  of  corruption." 


Turning  to  the  followers  of  Grattan  and  charging 
them  with  a  willingness  to  accept  half-way  measures 
he  said : 


"What  is  the  use  of  a  charter  but  to  defend  the  rights 
of  the  people  against  arbitrary  power? — a  half  assertion 
of  your  rights  will  never  do.  I  would  not  leave  an 
atom  of  power  in  an  arbitrary  council,  either  English 
or  Irish ;  legislation  does  not  belong  to  them ;  nor  can 
you  ever  have  a  safe  constitution  while  they  interfere. 
You  can  not  raise  a  structure  of  adamant  on  a  founda- 
tion of  sand." 


HENRY   FLOOD  33 

The  conclusions  of  his  speeches  reached  the  highest 
eloquence  and  made  a  profound  impression  on  the 
house : 


"And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  I  have  a  feeling  in  the 
inmost  pulse  of  my  heart  it  is  that  which  tells  me  that 
this  is  a  great  and  awful  day:  it  is  that  which  tells  me 
that  if  after  twenty  years'  service  I  shall  pass  this  ques- 
tion by  neglectingly,  I  shall  be  a  base  betrayer  of  my 
country:  it  is  that  which  tells  me  that  the  whole  earth 
does  not  contain  a  bribe  sufficient  to  make  me  trifle  with 
the  liberties  of  this  land.  I  do  therefore  wish  to  sub- 
scribe my  name  to  that  which  I  now  propose,  and  to 
have  it  handed  down  to  posterity,  that  posterity  may 
know  that  there  was  at  least  one  man  who  disapproved 
of  the  temporizing  bill  now  before  the  house — a  bill 
that  future  parliaments,  if  they  have  power,  will  re- 
form— if  they  have  not,  with  tears  will  deplore.     .     .     . 

"Were  the  voice  with  which  I  now  utter  this  the  last 
ieffort  of  expiring  nature ;  were  the  accent  which  con- 
veys it  to  you  the  breath  that  was  to  waft  me  to  that 
grave  to  which  we  all  tend,  and  to  which  my  footsteps 
rapidly  accelerate,  I  would  go  on,  I  would  make  my 
exit  by  a  loud  demand  for  your  rights ;  and  I  call  upon 
the  God  of  truth  and  liberty,  who  has  so  often  favored 
you,  and  who  has  of  late  looked  down  upon  you  with 
such  a  peculiar  grace  and  glory  of  protection,  to  con- 
tinue to  you  His  inspirings,  to  crown  you  with  the  spirit 
of  His  completion,  and  to  assist  you  against  the  errors 
of  those  who  are  honest,  as  well  as  against  the  machina- 
tions of  those  who  are  not." 


Backed  as  he  was  by  the  public  opinion  he  had 
iaroused  and  by  the  support  of  the  Volunteers  he  forced 
the  house  to  his  way  of  thinking  and  won  a  complete 
victory  which  was  duly  ratified  by  the  reluctant  power 
across  the  channel.    At  the  conclusion  of  this  fight  he 


34  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

had  reached  a  greater  degree  of  popularity  and  power 
than  he  had  possessed  before.  The  envious  within  the 
house  were  completely  disarmed.  Flood  had  found 
himself  again. 

The  feeling  between  Flood  and  Grattan  in  the  mean- 
while had  been  growing  tense,  and  more  particularly 
on  the  part  of  the  younger  man.  At  length  the  storm 
broke.  The  pretext  for  the  quarrel  came  in  a  harm- 
less motion  of  Sir  H.  Cavendish,  to  which  an  amend- 
ment was  proposed  by  Flood.  The  incident  reflects 
no  great  credit  upon  either  man.  The  exchange  of 
philippics  while  reflecting  the  oratorical  brilliancy  of 
the  leaders  might  profitably  be  forgotten  by  the  ad- 
mirers of  each.  The  quarrel  seems  to  have  been 
sought  on  the  part  of  Grattan,  whose  first  speech  ap- 
pears to  have  been  carefully  prepared.  With  great 
dexterity  Grattan  played  upon  the  weak  points  in 
Flood's  career,  but  the  severity  of  his  language  and 
the  ferocity  of  his  assault  were  scarcely  justified  by  the 
facts.  A  duel  was  narrowly  averted.  A  little  later 
the  house  granted  Flood  an  opportunity  for  the  de- 
livery of  the  elaborate  and  conclusive  defense  from 
which  a  quotation  has  been  given,  and  when  at  the 
conclusion  Grattan  rose  to  renew  the  quarrel,  the 
house  manifested  its  satisfaction  with  Flood's  expla- 
nation and  its  disapprobation  of  Grattan's  attitude  by 
adjourning  and  refusing  to  hear  him.  The  attack  did 
not  materially  injure  Flood  at  the  time  and  public 
sympathy  seems  to  have  been  largely  with  him.  Even 
the  king,  speaking  to  the  Duke  of  Chandos  at  a  levee, 
expressed  his  amazement  at  the  action  of  Grattan.  In 
the  years  that  followed  Flood  also  appears  in  a  better 
and  broader  light.    On  one  occasion  he  saluted  Grat- 


HENRY    FLOOD  35 

tan  in  passing,  but  the  salute  being  ignored  he  never 
again  made  an  attempt  at  conciliation,  although  he  was 
big  enough  to  preside  at  several  meetings  where  com- 
plimentary resolutions  were  passed  upon  the  work  of 
his  rival.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  fame  of  Flood 
has  suffered  in  the  transmission  of  Grattan's  wonder- 
ful invective  to  posterity  which  is  too  generally  ac- 
cepted at  its  face  value  by  the  superficial  reader  of 
Irish  history.  It  did  not  injure  him  with  the  Volun- 
teers, however,  as  we  shall  see. 


It  was  inevitable  that  Flood's  victory  in  the  renun- 
ciation action  should  have  created  immense  enthusi- 
asm among  the  Volunteers  and  impelled  them  to  push 
forward  to  greater  triumphs.  Even  the  attack  of 
Grattan  failed  to  diminish  one  whit  the  loyalty  of  the 
citizen-soldiery  and  we  find  the  Belfast  Volunteers, 
after  the  attack,  writing  him : 

"Persevere,  sir.  Continue  to  exert  your  unequalled 
abilities  in  fixing  the  internal  constitution  of  this  king- 
dom on  a  permanent  and  solid  foundation.  The  voice 
of  the  people  is  your  support,  and  the  voice  of  the  people 
must  be  attended  to.  It  is  the  purity  of  the  constitution 
that  gives  our  country  the  preference  to  another,  and 
marks  the  genius  of  the  inhabitants  in  a  most  distin- 
guishing manner.  We  hope  the  period  is  drawing  nigh 
when  the  senate  will  speak  the  wishes  of  the  people,  and 
when  our  liberty  shall  be  complete." 

The  meaning  of  this  was  soon  manifest  in  the  deter- 
mination of  the  Volunteers  to  press  upon  parliament 
the  passage  of  a  parliamentary  reform  bill  and  an 


Z6  JHE   IRISH   QRATORS 

Irish  bill  of  rights.  Meanwhile  Portland,  the  prime 
minister,  and  the  new  viceroy,  thoroughly  concerned 
on  account  of  the  Volunteers,  were  working  on  a  plan 
for  forming  "fencible  regiments"  to  take  the  place  of 
the  Volunteers.  The  reception  of  this  news  by  the  citi- 
zen-soldiery can  readily  be  imagined.  Galway,  Bel- 
fast, Cork  protested  against  the  substitution  of  what 
they  termed  "mercenaries."  The  feeling  became  so 
bitter  that  the  Belfast  company  at  a  banquet  drank  a 
toast — "May  the  fencibles  and  their  friends  never 
enjoy  the  benefits  of  freedom;  May  Ireland  never 
want  hemp  to  exalt  all  fencible  commanders  who  de- 
serve it."  This  defiant  attitude  still  further  intensified 
the  fear  of  the  ministry  and  about  this  time  we  find 
Fox  writing  to  poor  Northington,  the  viceroy,  de- 
manding all  sorts  of  impossible  things  looking  toward 
the  curbing  of  the  ominous  organization.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  know  that  Grattan  and  Lord  Charlemont,  the 
most  distinguished  leader  of  the  Volunteer  movement, 
were  in  complete  accord  with  the  wishes  of  Fox  and 
Northington  while  Flood  did  all  within  his  power  to 
encourage  the  aggressiveness  of  the  citizen-soldiers. 

When  the  new  parliament  was  called  for  October 
the  Volunteers,  having  had  preliminary  meetings,  de- 
termined to  hold  a  convention  in  Dublin  at  the  same 
time  and  to  sit  simultaneously  with  the  house  of  com- 
mons. This  smacked  of  revolution.  It  suggested  the 
divided  authority  of  the  early  days  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution. It  meant  Grattan's  parliament  against  Flood's 
Volunteers.  The  American  war  having  come  to  a 
disastrous  conclusion,  twelve  thousand  veteran  soldiers 
were  hurried  into  Ireland  under  the  command  of  Gen- 
eral Burgoyne,  and  it  is  significant  that  Flood  did  all 


HENRY    FLOOD  37 

within  his  power  to  reduce  their  number  under  the 
pretense  of  retrenchment. 

The  opening  of  the  Volunteers'  convention  was 
highly  spectacular  owing  to  the  dramatic  entrance  to 
the  city  of  the  Earl  Bishop  of  Derry,  who  was  ambi- 
tious to  dominate  and  head  the  soldiery  for  reasons 
that  historians  have  concluded  were  revolutionary. 
This  peculiar  character,  churchman  and  libertine  in 
one,  was  an  ostentatious  dandy.  He  entered  the  city 
drawn  by  six  prancing  horses  gaily  garbed  and  accom- 
panied by  two  brilHantly  uniformed  squadrons  of  Vol- 
unteers. Reaching  the  parliament  house,  the  members 
came  out  to  pay  their  respects.  The  bishop  saluted 
triumphantly,  the  bugle  sounded,  the  band  played  and 
the  procession  moved  on.  In  the  light  of  what  we  now 
know  it  is  possible  that  something  serious  might  have 
resulted  from  the  convention  but  for  the  prominence  of 
the  part  played  by  the  bishop.  Men  having  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  convention  but  having  a  right  to  mem- 
bership entered  with  the  sole  purpose  of  curbing  the 
Bishop  of  Derry  and  creating  discord  in  the  ranks 
through  the  precipitation  of  a  religious  question.  As  it 
was,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  draw  up  a  reform 
bill,  which  confined  the  franchise  to  Protestants,  and 
Henry  Flood  was  selected  to  present  it  to  the  house  of 
commons. 

On  the  night  of  its  presentation  Dublin  was  seething 
with  excitement.  The  feeling  prevailed  that  the  con- 
test between  the  convention  and  parliament  was  on. 
The  galleries  of  the  house  were  packed,  and  largely 
with  the  sympathizers  of  the  Volunteers.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  convention  who  were  also  members  of  the 
house  determined  to  march  from  the  convention  to  the 


38  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

house  in  the  uniforms  of  the  Volunteers  with  no  less 
a  personage  than  Henry  Flood  at  the  head  of  the  pro- 
cession. 

When  Flood  rose  pandemonium  broke  loose  in  the 
galleries.  It  must  have  been  the  proudest  moment  of 
his  life.  As  he  glanced  over  the  house  which  had 
done  all  within  its  power  to  accomplish  his  humilia- 
tion and  realized  that  his  popularity  with  the  people 
had  never  attained  such  heights  before,  it  must  have 
been  with  something  of  jubilation  and  haughtiness  of 
spirit  that  he  claimed  the  attention  of  the  chair.  There 
he  stood — a  magnificent  and  handsome  figure  arrayed 
in  the  uniform  of  the  citizen-soldier,  his  eyes  flashing 
fire,  his  manner  kingly,  feeling  no  doubt  that  he  bore 
to  a  reluctant  and  unworthy  assembly  the  message  of 
a  sovereign  people.  The  galleries  shouted  encourage- 
ment. The  convention  was  still  sitting.  Burgoyne's 
men  were  prepared  for  any  emergency  that  might 
arise.  Then  Yelverton,  the  spokesman  of  the  house, 
haughtily  refused  even  to  consider  the  bill  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  presented  at  the  point  of  the  bay- 
onet. In  his  opening  speech  Flood  had  carefully  re- 
frained from  mentioning  the  Volunteers  or  the  con- 
vention, but  when  the  citizen-soldiers  were  thus  decried 
by  Yelverton,  he  boldly  launched  forth  in  reply  in  his 
now  famous  defense  of  the  Volunteers : 

"Sir,  I  have  not  mentioned  the  bill  as  being  the  meas- 
ure of  any  set  of  men  or  body  of  men  whatsoever.  I 
am  as  free  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  bill  as  any 
gentleman  in  this  house,  and  with  as  little  prepossession 
of  what  I  shall  propose.  I  refer  it  to  the  house  as  the 
bill  of  my  right  honorable  friend  who  seconded  me — • 
will  you  receive  it  from  us? 


HENRY   FLOOD  39 

"In  the  last  parliament  it  was  ordered,  'That  leave  be 
given  for  more  equal  representation  of  the  people  in 
parliament;'  this  was  in  the  Duke  of  Portland's  admin- 
istration, an  administration  the  right  honorable  gentle- 
man (Yelverton)  professes  to  admire,  and  which  he 
will  not  suspect  of  overturning  the  constitution. 

"I  own,  from  the  turn  which  has  been  given  to  this 
question,  I  enter  on  it  with  the  deepest  anxiety ;  armed 
with  the  authority  of  a  precedent,  I  did  not  think  that 
any  one  would  be  so  desperate  as  to  give  such  violent 
opposition  to  the  simple  introduction  of  a  bill.  I  now 
rise  to  speak  to  the  subject,  and  I  call  on  every  man, 
auditor  or  spectator,  in  the  house  or  in  the  galleries, 
to  remember  this  truth — that  if  the  Volunteers  are  in- 
troduced in  this  debate,  it  is  not  I  who  do  so.  The  right 
honorable  gentleman  says,  *if  the  Volunteers  have  ap- 
proved it  he  will  oppose  it  ;*  but  I  say  I  bring  it  in  as 
a  member  of  this  house  supported  by  the  powerful  aid 
of  my  right  honorable  friend  (Mr.  Brownlow)  who  sits 
behind  me.  We  bring  it  in  as  members  of  parliament, 
not  mentioning  the  Volunteers.  I  ask  you,  will  you  re- 
ceive it  from  us — from  us,  your  members,  neither  in- 
tending by  anything  wnthin  doors  or  without  to  intimi- 
date or  overawe  you?  I  ask,  will  you — will  you  receive 
it  as  our  bill,  or  will  you  conjure  up  a  military  phantom 
of  interposition  to  affright  you? 

"I  have  not  introduced  the  Volunteers,  but  if  they 
are  aspersed,  I  will  defend  their  character  against  all 
the  world.  By  whom  were  the  commerce  and  consti- 
tution of  this  country  recovered?     By  the  Volunteers. 

"Why  did  not  the  right  honorable  gentleman  make 
a  declaration  against  them  when  they  lined  our  streets 
— when  parliament  passed  through  the  ranks  of  those 
virtuous  armed  men  to  demand  the  rights  of  an  insulted 
nation?  Are  they  different  men  at  this  time,  or  is  the 
right  honorable  gentleman  different?  He  was  then  one 
of  their  body,  he  is  now  their  accuser.  He  who  saw 
the  streets  lined,  who  rejoiced,  who  partook  in  their 
glory,  is  now  their  accuser.     Are  they  less  wise,  less 


40  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

brave,  less  ardent  in  their  country's  cause,  or  has  their 
admirable  conduct  made  him  their  enemy?  May  they 
not  say,  we  have  not  changed,  but  you  have  changed? 
The  right  honorable  gentleman  can  not  bear  to  hear  of 
Volunteers;  but  I  will  ask  him,  and  I  will  have  a  star- 
ling taught  to  haloo  in  his  ear — Who  gave  you  the  free 
trade  ?  Who  got  you  the  free  constitution  ?  Who  made 
you  a  nation?    The  Volunteers. 

"If  they  were  the  men  you  now  describe  them,  why 
did  you  accept  of  their  service?  Why  did  you  not  then 
accuse  them?  If  they  were  so  dangerous,  why  did  you 
pass  through  their  ranks  with  your  speaker  at  your  head 
to  demand  a  constitution?  Why  did  you  not  then  fear 
the  ills  you  now  apprehend?" 

In  the  debate  that  ensued,  one  of  the  most  exciting 
in  the  history  of  the  Irish  parliament,  Flood  stood  his 
ground,  haughtily  voicing  the  demands  of  the  nation, 
while  epithets  like  "armed  demagogues"  were  rained 
upon  him  by  many  who  must  a  little  later  have  had 
cause  to  wonder  whether  he  had  not  been  the  one  fore- 
seeing man  in  the  house.  It  was  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  when  the  vote  came  and  in  the  midst  of  tur- 
moil the  fight  of  the  Volunteers  was  lost  by  a  great 
majority. 

The  following  year  Flood  again  introduced  the  bill 
when  the  Volunteers  were  not  in  session  to  overawe  an 
Irish  parliament  and  when  the  most  timid  of  Irish 
statesmen  must  have  felt  perfectly  safe  under  the 
guardianship  of  the  English  soldiery.  Addresses  in 
favor  of  the  measure  poured  in  from  every  section  of 
the  country.  The  speech  of  Flood  was  one  of  his 
most  brilliant,  but,  after  a  prolonged  debate,  it  was 
defeated  about  three  o'clock  on  a  Sunday  morning  by 
a  majority  of  seventy-four.    With  this  defeat  Flood 


HENRY   FLOOD  41 

lost  all  confidence  in  the  Irish  parliament  and  all  hope 
of  protecting  his  country  in  that  quarter  and  a  little 
later  we  find  him  abandoning  the  lawmakers  of  Dub- 
lin to  sit  in  the  English  house  of  commons. 

It  has  been  a  puzzle  to  the  historians  to  know 
whether  or  not  Flood  entertained  revolutionary  de- 
signs. It  is  quite  probable  that,  knowing  the  character 
of  the  parliament  as  he  did,  he  felt  that  nothing  vital 
could  be  accomplished  unless  the  members  should  be 
overawed  by  some  force  outside  the  walls,  and  that  he 
was  willing  to  resort  to  an  unconstitutional  method  of 
procedure  to  attain  a  patriotic  purpose.  That  others 
in  later  years  recognized  his  wisdom  is  manifest  in 
the  question  of  Curran  on  the  night  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  legislative  independence  of  Ireland  when 
he  turned  sadly  to  a  companion  and  asked,  "Where 
now  are  your  one  hundred  thousand  men?"  What- 
ever may  be  thought  of  Flood's  connection  with  the 
Harcourt  administration  one  thing  must  be  conceded 
in  the  light  of  later  developments :  He  was  right  in 
his  contention  that  simple  repeal  was  not  sufficient, 
and  he  was  right  in  his  desire  to  see  the  Volunteers 
kept  under  arms. 

VI 

Unlike  Grattan,  O'Connell  and  Sheil,  who  were  bril- 
liantly successful  in  the  English  commons,  Henry 
Flood  was  unfortunate  from  the  moment  of  his  en- 
trance. His  first  speech  was  a  disappointment,  due 
partly  to  his  physical  condition  at  the  time,  and  to  the 
weariness  of  travel,  as  he  had  reached  London  by 
''forced  marches"  to  make  it.    Soon  afterward  he  was 


42  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

able  to  justify  his  Irish  admirers  by  his  rnasterful 
speeches  in  favor  of  his  parliamentary  reform  bill, 
and  on  the  commercial  treaty  with  France.  Very 
shortly  after  he  had  won  the  admiration  of  Fox  by  his 
argument  on  the  French  treaty  he  shocked  the  Eng- 
lish party  leaders  by  his  expressed  determination  to 
hold  aloof  from  all  English  parties  and  to  play  an 
independent  role.  With  this  announcement  all  parties 
lost  interest,  and  in  1790  he  lost  his  seat.  Disappointed, 
embittered,  and  sadly  broken  in  health,  he  retired  to 
Farmley  where  his  last  year  was  spent  in  morose 
seclusion.  As  he  felt  death  approaching  he  requested 
to  be  left  alone,  and  thus,  like  the  Spartan  that  he  was, 
he  passed  from  earth  in  solitude. 

With  all  his  faults,  his  virtues  far  outweighed  them. 
His  private  life  appears  to  have  been  such  as  to  make 
the  notation  of  the  drunken  Blanquiere  in  the  alpha- 
betical list  utterly  without  justification.  In  social  life 
he  was  easy,  polished,  graceful,  with  a  mildness  of 
manner  that  was  all  the  more  striking  because  of  the 
ferocity  of  his  onslaught  in  the  commons.  He  moved 
in  the  salon  with  the  courtliness  of  a  courtier.  He 
loved  his  books  and  was  never  happier  than  when  he 
could  find  time  for  the  seclusion  of  his  library.  His 
temper  was  customarily  even  and  unruffled  and  he 
possessed  the  Spartan's  power  of  suffering  in  silence. 
His  love  for  Ireland  was  disclosed  in  the  bequest  of  a 
professorship  at  Trinity  for  the  teaching  of  the  Gaelic 
language,  and  the  fact  that  the  will  was  broken  is  to 
the  discredit  of  others.  There  is  something  remark- 
able in  the  fact  that  Flood  stood  more  than  a  century 
ago  for  the  Volunteer  movement  now  so  popular,  for 
the  study  of  Gaelic  now  in  vogue,  for  absolute  inde- 


HENRY    FLOOD  43 

pendence  of  English  parties,  as  did  Parnell  in  later 
years.    He  loved  Ireland. 

vn 

In  forming  an  estimate  of  his  oratory  we  are  sadly 
handicapped  by  the  meager  material  by  which  to  judge. 
The  greater  portion  of  his  speeches  was  but  indiffer- 
ently reported,  seldom  prepared,  and  never  adequately 
collected.  His  great  speech  on  the  English  Reform 
bill,  for  example,  which  won  the  admiration  of  Ed- 
mund Burke  has  come  down  to  us  in  tantalizing  frag- 
ments. His  manner  was,  at  times,  highly  theatrical  and 
may  have  been  patterned  somewhat  after  that  of 
Lord  Chatham.,  upon  whom  he  looked  with  an  admira- 
tion akin  to  idolatry.  He  spoke  with  great  delibera- 
tion, and  his  enunciation  was  perhaps  a  trifle  too  pre- 
cise. Two  instances  may  be  cited  as  illustrative  of  his 
histrionic  talent.  One  evening  while  he  was  speaking 
in  the  house,  members  of  a  convivial  club,  gaudily 
garbed  in  orange  and  blue,  noisily  entered.  Instantly 
he  exclaimed : 

"Ha,  what  do  I  behold?  I  hail  these  glorious  colors, 
auspicious  of  the  constitution.  These  honorable  men 
have  no  doubt  spent  the  night  in  vigils  for  the  glory 
and  the  fortune  of  the  commonwealth." 

Then,  with  a  sarcastic  smile,  he  extended  his  arms 
and  continued:  "Come — come  to  this  heart  with  all 
your  patriotism." 

His  acting  on  this  occasion  is  said  to  have  been  con- 
summate, and  his  sarcasm  literally  drove  the  revelers 
in  confusion  from  the  house. 


44  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

On  another  occasion  while  he  was  speaking,  his  at- 
tention was  directed  to  the  activity  of  some  of  the 
whippers-in  of  the  ministry  going  about  among  the 
benches,  taking  down  the  names  of  those  who  had 
promised  to  support  the  Castle,  soliciting  others,  possi- 
bly bribing  a  few.  Pausing  a  moment,  and  fixing  his 
burning  eyes  upon  them,  he  exclaimed : 

"What  IS  this  that  I  see?  Shall  the  temple  of  free- 
dom be  still  haunted  by  the  foul  fiends  of  bribery  and 
corruption?  I  see  personified  before  me  an  incarnation 
of  that  evil  principle  which  lives  by  the  destruction  of 
public  virtue.  Avaunt,  thou  loathsome  sprite ;  thou  pan- 
derer  to  ministerial  profligacy;  and  no  longer  pollute 
with  thy  presence  this  edifice,  consecrated  to  the  con- 


The  effect  of  this  denunciation  was  magical,  and  the 
whippers-in  slunk  hurriedly  into  the  shadows.  Such 
incidents  vividly  suggest  the  art  of  Lord  Chatham. 
This  boldness,  this  Mirabeauian  audacity  and  spirit, 
made  him  an  object  as  much  of  fear  as  of  admiration. 

His  speeches  are  not  the  masterpieces  of  rhetorical 
art  that  those  of  the  succeeding  Irish  orators  are,  but 
it  was  Flood  who  first  introduced  rhetorical  eloquence 
into  the  Irish  parliament.  He  was  a  little  too  senten- 
tious and  labored  at  times,  and  while  his  speeches  were 
always  thoughtful  and  well  reasoned,  he  frequently 
became  a  little  pedantic.  It  required  a  big  subject  to 
do  him  justice.  His  great  rival,  Grattan,  once  said : 
"Put  a  distaff  in  his  hand,  and,  like  Hercules,  he  made 
sad  work  of  it;  but  give  him  a  thunderbolt  and  he  had 
the  arm  of  Jove."  As  a  parliamentarian  rcasoner  he 
had  no  rival  among  his  Irish  contemporaries.     Some 


HENRY    FLOOD  45 

of  his  more  ardent  admirers  like  to  compare  him  to 
Demosthenes  whose  oration  on  the  Crown  he  had 
taken  for  a  model.  He  did  have  a  concentrated  energy 
in  argumentation,  a  nervous  manner  suggestive  of  the 
great  Athenian.  He  did  not  waste  words.  He  used 
them  merely  as  implements  of  thought.  He  conse- 
quently lacks  the  adornment  of  rhetoric  associated 
with  the  Irish  school.  There  are  few  flights  of  fancy, 
few  poetic  touches  in  his  speeches.  Occasionally  he 
flashed  a  picture,  but  he  was  not  given  to  the  working 
out  of  an  elaborate  bit  of  imagery.  In  one  of  his 
speeches,  in  referring  to  the  charge  that  his  holding  of 
ofiice  detracted  from  his  capacity  to  serve  his  country, 
he  said  that  should  the  time  come  when  his  govern- 
mental position  would  conflict  with  his  patriotic  duty 
he  would  "remove  the  bracelet  and  throw  it  into  the 
common  cauldron."  On  another  occasion  in  referring 
to  attacks  being  made  upon  him  he  concluded  haugh- 
tily: "I  am  the  object  of  their  puny  efforts,  but  they 
harm  me  not ;  I  shake  them  off  as  falls  the  dew-drops 
from  the  lion's  mane." 

The  speeches  of  Flood  do  not  sparkle  and  burn  with 
the  majestic  rhythm  with  which  the  succeeding  Irish 
orators  delighted  the  senses  while  appealing  to  the 
minds  of  their  hearers,  and  few  of  his  passages  are 
such  that  they  have  been  repeated.  But  he  whose  elo- 
quence first  made  the  ministers  tremble,  and  whose 
genius  commanded  the  adoration  of  his  country  and 
the  admiration  of  Burke,  Fox,  Pitt  and  Wilberforce 
must  always  have  a  high  place  among  the  foremost  of 
the  Irish  orators. 


II 

HENRY    GRATTAN 

The  Fight  Against  the  Embargo  on  Irish  Exports ;  for  the  Inde- 
pendence of  the  Irish  ParHament;  Against  the  Commer- 
cial Propositions  of  Pitt;  and  Against  the  Policy 
of  the  Castle  of  Ruling  by  Corruption 

TO  one  Irishman  only  was  it  given  to  associate 
his  name  with  the  most  inspiring  and  the  most 
depressing  incidents  of  Erin's  story.  To  have  sounded 
the  paean  of  the  triumph  that  gave  his  people  an  inde- 
pendent parliament,  and  to  have  been  the  most  dra- 
matic spectator  of  its  fall  was  given  only  to  him  who 
"stood  by  its  cradle  and  followed  its  hearse."  This 
association  alone  would  suffice  to  set  hirn  upon  the 
pedestal  as  a  man  apart.  But  when  to  this  is  added  his 
transcendent  genius,  his  marvelous  eloquence,  his  un- 
faltering fidelity  to  the  cause  of  freedom,  his  impec- 
cable integrity,  and  his  almost  primitive  espousal  of 
the  cause  of  Catholic  emancipation,  he  looms  as  one 
of  the  truly  colossal  figures  of  all  history.  Before  him 
there  were  statesmen  in  Ireland  who  had  their  dreams 
of  nationality,  but  he  was  the  first  whose  conception 
of  the  nation  embraced  the  Catholics.  The  nation  of 
Flood's  dream  was  a  nation  dominated  by  a  small  fac- 
tion— a  nation  of  bigotry.  It  was  his  successor  who 
extended  the  boundaries  to  embrace  all  the  people. 
Aside  from  the  things  he  did  and  the  things  he  stood 

46 


HENRY    GRATTAN  47 

for,  the  character  of  the  man  has  given  him  preemi- 
nence in  the  estimation  of  posterity.  He  is  the  one 
paternal  figure  in  Irish  history — the  one  leader  whose 
gentleness,  goodness,  graciousness  are  suggestive  of 
Washington. 


The  theory  of  heredity  and  environment  is  given  a 
blow  in  the  case  of  Henry  Grattan,  whose  father  was 
a  slave  of  the  Castle  and  an  enemy  of  the  Catholics. 
The  pet  aversion  of  his  father  was  Doctor  Lucas,  the 
eccentric  patriot,  from  whom  the  son  received  the 
ideas  that  were  to  dominate  his  life.  This  divergence 
in  the  views  of  father  and  son  was  of  early  develop- 
ment and  it  tended  to  sadden  the  youth  of  the  future 
leader. 

It  was  not  until  he  entered  Dublin  University  in  his 
seventeenth  year,  in  1763,  that  he  began  to  disclose  the 
exceptional  ability  that  was  to  take  him  so  far.  An  in- 
teresting feature  of  his  college  career  is  the  fact  that 
his  one  and  only  rival  for  scholastic  honors  was  the 
same  infamous  Lord  Clare  who  divided  with  him  the 
choice  prizes  of  the  university.  Our  most  satisfactory 
view  of  this  period  of  Grattan's  life  is  to  be  had  in  the 
voluminous  correspondence  with  a  classmate  in  which 
he  is  exhibited  as  a  melancholy  and  poetic  youth 
dreaming  of  a  retirement  to  some  quiet  country  lodg- 
ing where  he  might  "enjoy  poverty  and  independ- 
ency." We  are  led  to  believe  by  his  biographers  that 
this  tendency  to  melancholy  was  born  of  the  attitude 
of  the  father  toward  the  liberal  leanings  of  the  son. 
If  such  were  the  true  explanation  it  might  account  for 


48  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

the  apparent  lack  of  political  ambition  which  may  have 
been  suppressed  out  of  deference  to  his  sire.  Certain 
it  is  that  his  studies  at  this  time  do  not  convince  the 
reader  of  the  sincerity  of  his  wish  for  the  obscurity  of 
solitude.  We  find  him  fairly  living  with  Lord  Boling- 
broke  by  whose  "superiority  as  a  reasoner  and  orator" 
he  was  greatly  impressed — reading,  analyzing,  memo- 
rizing the  choice  specimens  of  his  eloquence.  Among 
the  classic  poets  his  favorite  was  Virgil,  and  strangely 
enough  his  favorite  modern  English  poet  was  Pope, 
whom  he  thought  possessed  of  a  "correctness  and  ele- 
gance superior  to  any  author"  with  some  passages 
"where  he  is  no  less  sublime." 

When  in  his  twenty-first  year  he  passed  over  to 
London  to  study  law  at  the  Temple  we  find  him  still 
whimsically  writing  of  the  charms  of  country  soli- 
tudes and  devoting  himself  with  significant  assiduity  to 
the  study  of  politics  and  eloquence  from  the  galleries 
of  the  lords.  It  was  in  looking  down  upon  the  per- 
formances of  the  majestic  Chatham  that  the  Irish 
student  found  a  fit  rival  for  his  beloved  Bolingbroke, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  passionate  ora- 
torical outbursts  of  the  great  commoner  and  his  the- 
atrical delivery  made  a  profound  and  permanent 
impression  upon  the  youth  in  the  gallery.  The  legal 
studies  were  almost  wholly  neglected  and  he  became 
obsessed  with  politics,  absorbed  in  his  studies  of  parlia- 
mentary procedure,  and  parliamentary  eloquence.  The 
story  is  told  that  his  landlady  beseeched  his  friends  to 
take  him  away  because  he  was  out  of  his  mind — this 
idea  being  based  on  the  fact  that  he  sometimes  walked 
up  and  down  in  her  garden  half  the  night  speaking 
passionately  to  himself,  and  addressing  some  phantom 


HENRY   GRATTAN  49 

of  the  fancy  as  "Mr.  Speaker."  During  his  residence 
in  England  he  shared  chambers  at  the  Temple  with  a 
friend  with  whom  he  took  a  house  in  Windsor  Forest 
where  he  could  dip  into  that  poetic  rusticity  of  which 
he  was  ever  very  fond.  He  loved  the  beautiful  land- 
scape, the  romantic  scenery  that  surrounded  his  abode, 
and  not  infrequently  he  would  spend  the  whole  of  a 
moonlight  night  meandering  through  the  country,  ora- 
torically  improvising  to  the  stars.  On  one  of  his  ram- 
bles he  suddenly  found  himself  confronting  a  gibbet, 
and  pausing,  he  began  fervently  to  apostrophize  the 
chains,  when  he  felt  a  hand  upon  his  shoulder  and 
turned  to  face  a  stranger  whose  astonishing  interroga- 
tion— "How  in  the  devil  did  you  get  down,"  appealed 
immensely  to  his  Irish  sense  of  humor. 

On  his  return  to  Ireland  he  found  the  fashionable 
portion  of  the  country  turning  with  avidity  to  private 
theatricals  for  diversion,  and  it  was  in  connection  with 
this  pastime  that  he  was  to  become  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  another  public  character  who  was  destined 
to  feel  the  sting  of  his  lash.  The  country  life  of  the 
Irish  aristocracy  of  that  period  was  brilliant  and  ele- 
gant, and  for  a  time  we  find  Grattan,  a  handsome 
youth,  with  his  share  of  romantic  notions,  passing 
from  country  house  to  country  house,  participating  in 
the  presentation  of  light  comedies  with  an  occasional 
tragedy  to  give  dignity  to  the  vogue.  As  we  have  seen 
in  the  sketch  of  Flood  he  did  not  shrink  from  under- 
taking a  Shakesperlan  role.  Thus  dashing  off  clever 
verses  to  the  ladies,  and  spouting  dramatic  lines  from 
the  stage,  he  seemed  for  a  season  to  have  abandoned 
all  high  ambition,  but  who  shall  say  that  this  experi- 
ence did  not  contribute  materially  to  his  preparation 


50  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

for  that  more  exalted  theater  in  whicfi  he  was  to 
move.  Even  in  his  meanderings  among  the  country 
houses,  however,  he  found  time  for  serious  occupation 
and  we  find  him  engaged  with  Flood  in  the  study  of 
eloquence,  and  gathering  inspiration  from  the  older 
man  for  the  political  career  toward  which  he  may  have 
been  unconsciously  tending. 

In  his  twenty-fifth  year  he  suddenly  left  Ireland  and 
went  to  Paris,  but  he  soon  deserted  the  gaieties  of  the 
capital  for  the  rural  scenery  of  France,  and  we  find 
him  taking  a  leisurely  sentimental  journey  to  Vernon, 
and  along  the  banks  of  the  Loire. 

Returning  to  Dublin  in  1772  he  was  called  to  the 
Irish  bar.  In  view  of  his  own  confession  it  may  be 
said  that  he  knew  very  little  of  the  law,  and  it  is  certain 
that  he  was  temperamentally  unfitted  for  its  practise. 
He  appears  to  have  decided  to  buckle  down  to  his  pro- 
fession— but  his  decision,  like  a  New  Year's  resolu- 
tion, v/as  broken  lightly,  and  his  name  never  figured 
in  the  proceedings  of  Four  Courts.  Fortunately,  how- 
ever, his  distant  association  with  the  profession  threw 
him  into  a  circle  of  remarkable  men,  all  of  whom  were 
to  play  brilliant  and  conspicuous  parts  in  the  political 
drama  of  the  country.  His  group  of  friends  embraced 
some  of  the  choicest  spirits  of  the  time.  These  men 
formed  a  club,  known  as  "The  Society  of  Granby 
Row"  and  met  frequently  at  one  another's  houses  to 
discuss  the  politics  of  the  day.  It  was  here  that  Grat- 
tan  took  the  postgraduate  course  that  prepared  him 
for  pubhc  life.  The  presiding  genius  of  the  company 
was  Charlemont.  What  a  remarkable  patriot!  Un- 
mindful of  personal  ambition  he  was  ever  ambitious 
for  Ireland,  and  it  was  he  who  gave  to  public  life  Ed- 


James  Ramsay 


Photograph  by  Geoghegan 


Henry  Grattan 


From  a  copy  made  for  Lady  Laura  Grattan  by  Sir  Thomas  A.  Jones,  P.R.H.A. 

for  the  purpose  of  presentation  to  the  National  Gallery  of  Ireland, 

of  the    portrait  in   the  possession  of  the  Grattan  family 


HENRY    GRATTAN  51 

mund  Burke,  Henry  Flood,  Henry  Grattan,  Lord 
Plunkett  and  many  others.  We  have  from  the  pen  of 
Grattan  one  picture  of  an  Attic  evening  at  the  home 
of  Dennis  Daly,  a  hurricane  of  debate,  where  they  sat 
at  table — for  they  were  convivial  souls — with  books 
scattered  all  about  them,  at  their  elbows,  at  their  feet, 
conversing  about  the  wrongs  of  Ireland  and  the  most 
effective  method  for  the  righting  of  them.  Little  won- 
der that  such  associations  should  have  given  the 
proper  bent  to  Grattan's  career!  The  sentimental 
dreams  of  rustic  retirement  vanished  in  the  white  light 
of  this  virile  company,  and,  under  the  inspiration  of 
their  encouragement,  Henry  Grattan  determined  to 
dedicate  his  genius  to  the  land  of  his  love.  Lord 
Charlemont  eagerly  paved  the  way  to  parliament,  and 
thus,  just  at  the  time  when  the  leadership  of  Flood 
was  compromised  by  the  enervating  and  corrupting  in- 
fluence of  the  Castle,  and  the  patriot  party  was  with- 
out a  leader  of  genius  sufficiently  commanding,  Henry 
Grattan  took  the  oath  as  a  member  of  the  Irish  house 
of  commons  and  entered  upon  his  political  career. 

II 

The  period  at  which  Grattan  entered  the  Irish  par- 
liament was  critical,  owing  partly  to  the  economic  con- 
ditions growing  out  of  the  American  revolution.  By 
proclamation  of  the  government  an  embargo  had  been 
laid  upon  the  export  of  provisions  from  Irish  ports, 
resulting  in  the  i^tmost  distress  among  the  people. 
The  linen  trade  declined  and  thousands  of  artisans 
were  thrown  out  into  the  street  without  means  of  sup- 
port.   The  Industrial  life  but  reflected  the  dire  condi- 


52  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

tions  of  the  mart,  and  In  every  sphere  of  hfe,  and  in 
every  locality,  the  utmost  indignation  against  the  gov- 
ernmental action  was  openly  expressed.  Meanwhile 
the  expenses  of  government  had  been  growing  apace 
and  the  notorious  pension  list  had  been  extended  out 
of  all  proportion  with  the  common  decencies  of  things. 
Amazing  as  it  may  seem  to  one  unfamiliar  with  the 
attitude  of  arbitrary  power  toward  public  opinion,  this, 
of  all  times,  was  selected  for  increasing  official  salaries. 
Such  being  the  situation,  it  is  not  surprising  to  see 
Grattan  joining  forces  with  the  opposition,  and  within 
four  days  after  taking  the  oath,  we  find  him  stoutly 
supporting  a  motion  on  the  embargo  to  the  effect  "that 
the  attempt  to  suspend  law,  under  the  color  of  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  crown  is  illegal."  His  speech  on  this 
occasion,  while  inadequately  reported,  attracted  wide 
attention,  the  Dublin  press  laying  particular  stress 
upon  his  "spontaneous  flow  of  natural  eloquence." 
Thus  from  his  initial  speech  he  ranked  among  the 
foremost  of  the  orators.  A  little  later  he  took  it  upon 
himself  to  move  for  retrenchment  in  expenses,  and 
in  his  speech  in  support  of  his  motion,  he  returned  to 
the  attack  on  the  embargo  and  opened  up  vigorously 
upon  the  pension  evil.  The  most  interesting  phase  of 
this  speech  lies  in  the  fact  that  Charles  James  Fox, 
who  was  then  in  Dublin,  occupied  a  seat  on  the  floor, 
and  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  eloquence  of  the 
young  orator.  He  sought  an  opportunity  to  meet 
Grattan  socially  and  from  this  meeting  developed  the 
close  and  ardent  friendship  destined  to  have  its  effect 
on  the  political  history  of  the  times.  A  little  later  we 
find  Grattan  renewing  his  attack  upon  the  embargo, 


HENRY    GRATTAN  53 

the  pension  list,  and  the  increased  salaries  in  a  motion 
for  an  address  to  the  king,  and  all  to  no  avail. 

Meanwhile  conditions  were  becoming  desperate. 
The  power  in  London  was  either  ignorant  of,  or  indif- 
ferent to,  the  fate  of  the  green  isle,  and  about  this  time 
Lord  North,  in  merry  mood,  was  declaring  that 
"everything  was  a  scene  of  festivity  in  Ireland."  So 
far  was  this  from  the  truth  that  even  the  government 
was  reduced  to  the  humiliating  and  disgraceful  neces- 
sity of  negotiating  a  loan  from  a  private  banking- 
house  of  Dublin  to  prevent  the  complete  dissolution  of 
the  state.  The  banking  house  of  LaTouche  responded 
to  the  pitiful  cry  for  succor  with  a  loan  of  twenty 
thousand  pounds,  but  this  proved  to  be  but  a  drop  in 
the  bucket  of  necessity.  Another  appeal  was  made  to 
the  private  banking  house,  but  the  bankers  declined  to 
increase  the  government's  indebtedness,  and  the  state 
stood  dissolved  in  fact,  if  not  by  open  confession  of 
authority.  To  add  to  the  desperation  of  the  situation 
an  invasion  from  France  was  feared  and  the  govern- 
ment admitted  its  inability  to  put  into  the  field  a  mili- 
tary force  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  protect  the  coun- 
try from  the  foreign  enemy.  Then  there  sprang  into 
existence  that  marvelous  and  immortal  body  of  men 
known  as  the  Volunteers. 

This  tragic  situation  w^as  Ireland's  opportunity. 
None  wxre  so  blind  they  could  not  see  the  mockery  of 
submitting  to  commercial  restrictions  ruinous  to  trade 
from  a  government  so  weak,  and  the  demand  rose 
from  all  classes  and  sections  for  free  trade.  The  press 
teemed  with  articles  voicing  the  popular  desire.  The 
Volunteers  passed  resolutions  of  similar  import.    The 


54  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

proposal  was  made  that  the  people  should  buy  only 
articles  of  Irish  manufacture  and  the  response  was 
spontaneous  and  enthusiastic.  The  hour  of  Ireland's 
redemption  from  commercial  bondage  had  struck. 

No  one  else  saw  this  opportunity  so  quickly  as  Henry 
Grattan.  He  determined  to  seize  it  without  delay.  He 
laid  aside,  for  a  season,  all  other  ideas  of  reform  to 
concentrate  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  trade  and  manufac- 
tures. And  so  one  day,  in  company  with  Daly  and 
Burgh,  he  went  down  to  the  little  town  of  Bray  upon 
the  coast  to  prepare  the  proper  motion  and  perfect 
plans  for  the  parliamentary  struggle. 

Meanwhile  the  government  had  been  busily  em- 
ployed exerting  every  possible  influence  to  prevent  the 
intended  motion  from  being  made. 

The  debate  following  the  presentation  of  the  Grat- 
tan amendment  was  prolific  of  surprises.  Hussey 
Burgh,  a  member  of  the  government,  declared  that 
with  some  slight  alteration  in  the  commencement 
of  the  amendment  he  would  heartily  support  it.  This 
was  quickly  agreed  to.  Then  Flood,  not  to  be  outdone 
by  his  rival,  suggested  the  substitution  of  the  plain 
words  "free  trade"  in  lieu  of  "free  export  and  import," 
and  Grattan  hastened  to  accept  the  suggestion.  The 
demoralization  of  the  forces  of  the  Castle  made  oppo- 
sition impractical  and  the  amendment  to  the  address 
was  passed  without  one  dissenting  vote.  And  this 
splendid  triumph  was  won  by  Grattan  against  the  ad- 
vice of  practically  all  his  trusted  friends !  When  the 
entire  house  marched  through  the  streets,  lined  with 
the  Volunteers,  on  its  way  to  the  Castle  a  new  day 
dawned  for  Ireland.  The  giant  had  awakened  from 
its  slumbers.    The  novelty  of  the  people's  representa- 


HENRY   GRATTAN  55 

tives  asserting  the  right  to  legislate  for  Ireland  touched 
the  imaginations  of  the  masses  who  thronged  the 
streets,  cheering  the  members  as  they  passed. 

The  king's  reply  was,  as  expected,  an  evasion, 
couched  in  the  meaningless  phraseology  of  hope.  But 
the  day  of  procrastination  had  passed.  The  Volun- 
teers, under  arms,  were  an  ominous  menace  to  the 
Castle,  and  one  daring  soul  asserted  on  the  floor  of  the 
house  that  the  reform  would  be  given  by  parliament 
or  be  taken  by  the  Volunteers!  The  government 
quickly  seized  on  this  ultimatum  in  an  attempt  to  crip- 
ple the  patriots  and  divert  the  issue,  only  to  be  met  by 
Grattan  with  a  vigorous  defense  of  the  Volunteers  and 
an  assertion  of  their  right,  as  citizens,  to  direct  the 
course  of  their  parliamentary  representatives.  These 
armed  patriots  likewise  accepted  the  challenge,  and  at 
numerous  meetings  the  representatives  were  instructed 
to  vote  supplies  for  no  more  than  six  months. 

The  people  were  now  in  ugly  mood.  The  Volun- 
teers paraded  in  the  capital  while  the  multitude 
cheered.  The  city  was  illuminated  in  celebration  of 
the  success  of  Grattan's  motion.  Members  on  their 
way  to  the  house  were  stopped  by  citizens  with  pistols 
and  swords  and  ordered  to  vote  a  Short  Money  bill. 
The  carriage  of  the  speaker  was  halted  and  he  was 
forced  to  take  an  oath.  The  militia  was  called  out — 
only  to  fall  back  before  the  jeers  and  laughter  of  the 
people. 

The  house  met  and  Grattan  rose  and  calmly  offered 
a  short  resolution : 


"Resolved  that  at  this  time  it  would  be  inexpedient 
to  grant  new  taxes." 


56  lTHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

This  resolution  was  passed  unanimously. 

The  next  day  it  was  moved  that  the  appropriated 
duties  should  be  granted  for  six  months  only — and 
this  carried  by  a  large  majority.  It  was  in  the  discus- 
sion of  this  motion  that  Ireland  found  her  Patrick 
Henry  when  Burgh  exclaimed  amid  the  greatest  ex- 
citement : 

"Talk  not  to  me  of  peace;  Ireland  is  not  in  a  state 
of  peace;  it  is  smothered  war.  England  has  sown  her 
laws  like  dragon's  teeth,  and  they  have  sprung  up  in 
armed  men." 

This  utterance  lost  Burgh  his  place  in  the  govern- 
ment, but  it  won  from  Grattan  a  more  precious  gift  in 
the  form  of  the  tribute  that  "the  gates  of  promotion 
were  shut  as  those  of  glory  opened.'* 

Rapidly  the  Irish  movement  was  now  progressing 
along  the  lines  of  the  American  revolution.  In  Burgh 
was  found  the  Patrick  Henry;  in  Alderman  Horan,  a 
Dublin  merchant,  was  disclosed  the  Boston  spirit.  Au- 
daciously taking  the  ground  that  the  English  parlia- 
ment could  not  bind  Ireland,  he  tendered  his  goods  for 
export  at  the  custom  house.  Thoroughly  alarmed,  the 
custom  official  notified  the  lord  lieutenant,  who,  in 
turn,  communicated  with  London.  The  situation  was 
filled  with  dynamite.  The  least  spark, — and  it  would 
have  exploded  in  revolution.  Fortunately,  perhaps, 
Grattan  and  his  followers  managed  to  prevent  a  pre- 
mature uprising  of  the  people,  until  Lord  North,  re- 
alizing the  fatuity  of  further  resistance,  yielded  to  the 
inevitable,  and  the  free  trade  measures  of  1779  were 
enacted  into  law.  Grattan  was  at  this  time  a  young 
man  of  thirty-three  years! 


HENRY   GRATTAN  57 

The  free  trade  victory  failed,  however,  to  lull  the 
ipeople  to  sleep  again.  The  concession  had  been  all  but 
forced  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and  the  nation  re- 
alized the  insecurity  of  its  position.  It  knew  that  the 
same  power  that  had  granted  the  concession  could 
withdraw  it  later  on,  and  the  Volunteers,  with  the 
hearty  cooperation  of  Grattan,  determined  to  press 
without  delay  for  the  modification  of  Poyning's  law 
and  the  repeal  of  the  sixth  of  George  First,  which  de- 
clared the  dependency  of  Ireland. 

When  Grattan  served  notice  that  he  would  ask  for 
a  declaration  of  Irish  rights  the  Castle  became  thor- 
oughly alive  to  the  fact  that  a  movement  had  been 
launched  which  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Irish  parliament,  and  all  the  creatures 
of  government  were  set  to  work  to  canvass  against  the 
declaration  and  the  repeal.  The  awakened  people  ral- 
lied enthusiastically  around  the  young  tribune,  and 
petitions  poured  in  from  mass  meetings  of  citizens  and 
conventions  of  the  Volunteers.  To  appreciate  the  true 
superiority  of  Grattan  it  is  but  necessary  to  know  that 
even  his  most  intimate  friends  and  the  most  ardent  pa- 
triots looked  upon  his  new  proposition  with  feelings  of 
genuine  alarm.  He  was  censured  by  the  Burgh  who  had 
supported  the  free  trade  movement,  and  by  the  Daly 
who  had  cooperated  with  him  in  that  work.  Lord 
Charlemont  timidly  held  back,  and  from  London  came 
the  frantic  message  of  Edmund  Burke,  "Will  no  one 
speak  to  this  mad  man?  will  no  one  stop  this  mad  man 
Grattan?" 

In  truth  it  was  an  enormous  responsibility  Grattan 
had  taken  upon  himself — the  salvation  of  his  country, 
the  righting  of  the  multitudinous  wrongs  of  years. 


58  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

He  was  young,  inexperienced  in  the  intricacies  of  poli- 
tics, without  influential  family  connections,  without  a 
powerful  personal  following  of  any  description,  and 
so  poor  that,  according  to  his  own  statement,  he  could 
scarcely  boast  of  an  income  of  five  hundred  pounds  a 
year.  Some  of  the  truest  patriots  and  ablest  statesmen 
in  Ireland  urged  him  to  desist  lest  the  ire  of  the  Eng- 
lish, being  aroused,  would  lead  to  the  withdrawal  of 
the  few  concessions  granted,  and  the  infliction  of 
greater  hardships  upon  the  country.  Beset  by  the  im- 
portunities of  his  friends,  Grattan  left  Dublin  and 
sought  the  solitude  of  Celbridge  Abbey  and  the  advice 
of  his  uncle.  There  on  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  river 
"amid  the  groves  and  bowers  of  Swift  and  Vanessa" 
he  confirmed  his  purpose. 

When  on  April  nineteenth,  1780,  he  rose  in  the 
awesome  silence  of  the  house  to  present  the  resolu- 
tions to  the  effect  "That  his  most  excellent  majesty,  by 
and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  lords  and  com^ 
mons  of  Ireland,  are  the  only  power  competent  to 
enact  laws  to  bind  Ireland,"  Ireland  became  a  nation — 
for  she  had  found  a  Voice.  His  speech  on  this  occa- 
sion was  the  greatest  of  his  career.  He  spoke  with  a 
great  volume  of  tone  and  appeared  to  many  who 
heard  him  as  one  inspired.  With  rapidity  and  fire, 
with  a  commanding  and  majestic  eloquence  that 
thrilled  and  captivated,  he  compelled  the  respect  of  his 
enemies  and  won  the  undying  admiration  of  his  people 
and  of  posterity. 

With  the  boldness  of  defiance  and  the  consciousness 
of  power  he  spoke  the  frank  language  of  a  free  man 
and  in  conclusion  thrilled  and  startled  the  house  and 
galleries  with  that  almost  inspired  peroration  which 


HENRY    GRATTAN  59 

has  never  been  surpassed  and  seldom  equaled  by  any 
orator  in  the  world's  history : 

"Do  not  tolerate  that  power  which  blasted  you  for  a 
century,  which  shattered  your  loom,  banished  your  man- 
ufactures, dishonored  your  peerage,  and  stopped  the 
growth  of  your  people ;  do  not,  I  say,  be  bribed  by  any 
export  of  woolen,  or  an  import  of  sugar,  and  permit 
that  power  which  has  thus  withered  the  land  to  remain 
in  your  country  and  have  existence  in  your  pusillanimity. 

*'Do  not  suffer  the  arrogance  of  England  to  imagine 
a  surviving  hope  in  the  fears  of  Ireland;  do  not  send 
the  people  to  their  own  resolves  for  liberty,  passing  by 
the  tribunals  of  justice  and  the  high  court  of  parlia- 
ment; neither  imagine  that,  by  any  formation  of  apol- 
ogy, you  can  palliate  such  a  commission  to  your  hearts, 
still  less  to  your  children,  who  will  sting  you  with  their 
curses  in  your  grave  for  having  interposed  between 
them  and  their  maker,  robbing  them  of  an  immense  oc- 
casion, and  losing  an  opportunity  which  you  did  not 
create,  and  can  never  restore. 

"Hereafter,  when  these  things  shall  be  history,  your 
age  of  thraldom  and  poverty,  your  sudden  resurrec- 
tion, commercial  redress,  and  miraculous  armament, 
shall  the  historian  stop  at  liberty,  and  observe — that  here 
the  principal  men  among  us  fell  into  mimic  trances  of 
gratitude — they  were  awed  by  a  weak  ministry,  and 
bribed  by  an  empty  treasury — and  when  liberty  was 
within  their  grasp,  and  the  temple  opened  her  folding 
doors,  and  the  arms  of  the  people  clanged,  and  the  zeal 
of  the  nation  encouraged  and  urged  them  on,  that  they 
fell  down,  and  were  prostituted  at  the  threshold. 

"I  might,  as  a  constituent,  come  to  your  bar,  and  de- 
mand my  liberty.  I  do  call  upon  you,  by  the  laws  of 
the  land  and  their  violation,  by  the  instruction  of  eight- 
een counties,  by  the  arms,  inspiration  and  providence 
of  the  present  moment,  tell  us  the  rule  by  which  we 
shall  go — assert  the  laws  of  Ireland— declare  the  liberty 
of  the  land. 


60  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

"I  will  not  be  answered  by  a  public  lie,  in  the  way 
of  an  amendment;  neither,  speaking  for  the  subject's 
freedom,  am  I  to  hear  of  faction.  I  wish  for  nothing 
but  to  breathe,  in  this  our  island,  in  common  with  my 
fellow  subjects,  the  air  of  liberty.  I  have  no  ambition, 
unless  it  be  the  ambition  to  break  your  chains,  and  con- 
template your  glory.  I  never  will  be  satisfied  so  long 
as  the  meanest  cottager  in  Ireland  has  a  link  of  the 
British  chain  clanking  to  his  rags;  he  may  be  naked, 
he  shall  not  be  in  irons ;  and  I  do  see  the  time  is  at  hand, 
the  spirit  is  gone  forth,  the  declaration  is  planted;  and 
though  great  men  should  apostatize,  yet  the  cause  will 
live;  and  though  the  public  speaker  should  die,  yet  the 
immortal  fire  shall  outlive  the  humble  organ  which  con- 
veyed it,  and  the  breath  of  liberty,  like  the  word  of  the 
holy  man,  will  not  die  with  the  prophet,  but  survive 
him." 


When  Grattan  sat  down  after  his  masterful  effort 
of  two  hours'  duration  and  his  resolution  was  sec- 
onded by  the  father  of  Lord  Castlereagh — a  bit  of  the 
irony  of  fate — the  lines  were  distinctly  drawn  in  the 
battle  for  the  legislative  independence  of  Ireland.  The 
effect  of  the  speech,  magical  though  it  was  in  the 
house,  was  destined  to  exercise  a  far  more  remarkable 
influence  upon  the  awakened  country.  It  was  like  a 
fire  bell  clanging  in  the  night — the  tocsin,  calling  the 
people  to  arms.  Its  immediate  results  were  unsatisfac- 
tory. Lord  Clare  followed  with  an  abusive  speech  lev- 
eled at  the  Volunteers,  and  Henry  Flood  urged  a  post- 
ponement of  the  issue  on  the  rather  ridiculous  ground 
that  all  might  be  won  by  gratitude.  Happily,  through 
a  clever  parliamentary  device  of  Burgh,  there  was  no 
adverse  parliamentary  record  of  the  resolutions.  The 
day  following,  the  lord  lieutenant  wrote  to  England 


HENRY    GRATTAN.  61 

to  the  effect  that  Grattan  had  spoken  "with  great  abil- 
ity, and  with  a  great  warmth  and  enthusiasm." 

Henceforth  Grattan  concentrated  his  energies  to  bring 
about  the  early  consummation  of  his  plans  for  Ireland, 
and  strangely  enough  the  government,  through  a  seem- 
ingly blind  stupidity,  played  into  his  hands  in  prac- 
tically every  move  it  made.  The  people  were  predis- 
posed toward  the  plan  in  the  beginning,  but  the  series 
of  unpopular  measures  thrust  upon  the  country  imme- 
diately after  Grattan  had  offered  his  resolutions  served 
to  intensify  the  determination  of  the  nation  to  achieve 
its  independence.  Hardly  had  Ireland  won  her  com- 
mercial rights  when  England  sought  to  impose  a  duty 
on  raw  sugar,  thereby  dealing  a  serious  blow  to  the 
sugar  refineries  of  the  country,  and  forcing  upon  the 
popular  mind  the  insecurity  of  the  concessions  granted. 
This  stupid  move  inflamed  the  people.  They  met  in 
mass  meetings  all  over  the  island  to  voice  their  protest 
and  pledge  themselves  to  consume  or  import  none  of 
that  species  of  sugar. 

The  seed  Grattan  had  sown  now  fell  on  fertile  soil. 
Following  close  upon  this  unfortunate  incident  came 
the  controversy  over  the  !Mutiny  bill,  an  obnoxious 
law  which  the  ministers  proposed  to  impose  upon  the 
Irish.  This  indicated  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
government  to  tyrannize  over  Ireland,  alarmed  even 
the  most  conservative,  and  aroused  the  intense  indig- 
nation of  the  masses. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  parliament  was  yet  more 
subservient  than  the  people  the  perpetual  Mutiny  bill 
was  enacted,  and  Grattan,  determined  to  use  the  un- 
popular measure  to  fan  into  a  conflagration  the  indig- 
nation of  the  people,  served  notice  that  at  the  begin- 


62  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

ning  of  the  next  session  he  would  move  the  repeal  of 
the  law.  True  to  his  word  he  brought  the  Mutiny  bill 
before  the  house  at  the  earliest  opportunity  in  a  speech 
which  rang  with  a  militancy  that  thrilled  the  country. 

"However  astonishing  it  may  appear,"  he  began  im- 
pressively, "I  rise  in  the  18th  century  to  vindicate 
Magna  Charta,  sanctified  as  it  is  by  the  authority  of 
six  hundred  years.  I  call  upon  gentlemen  to  teach  Brit- 
ish privileges  to  an  Irish  senate.  I  quote  the  laws  of 
England,  first,  because  they  are  laws;  secondly,  because 
they  are  franchises  of  Irishmen  as  well  as  of  English- 
men. I  am  not  come  to  say  what  is  expedient;  I  come 
to  demand  a  right,  and  I  hope  that  I  am  speaking  to 
men  who  know  and  feel  their  rights,  and  not  to  corrupt 
consciences  and  inferior  capacities.  I  beg  gentlemen  to 
tell  me  why,  and  for  what  reason,  the  Irish  nation  was 
deprived  of  the  British  constitution;  the  limitation  of 
the  Mutiny  bill  was  one  of  the  great  hinges  of  the  con- 
stitution, and  ought  it  then  to  be  perpetual  in  Ireland. 
.  .  .  We  want  not  an  army  as  Great  Britain  does; 
for  an  army  is  not  our  protection :  we  keep  up  an  army 
only  to  strengthen  the  arm  of  prerogative;  and  in  the 
hour  of  danger,  this  boasted  army  is  not  found  at  home 
to  support  you.  Was  your  army  your  protection  when 
Sir  Richard  Heron  told  you  you  must  trust  to  God  and 
your  country?  You  want  it  not  for  defense,  you  want 
it  not  for  ambition;  you  have  no  foreign  dominions  to 
preserve,  and  your  people  are  amenable  to  law.  Our 
duties  are  of  a  different  nature — to  watch  with  inces- 
sant vigils  the  cradle  of  the  constitution ;  to  rear  an  in- 
fant state,  to  protect  a  rising  trade,  to  foster  a  growing 
people :  among  all  the  varieties  of  secretaries  and  of  re- 
ligions, everything  here  is  unanimity;  the  new  world 
has  overturned  the  prejudices  of  the  old;  it  has  let  in 
a  light  upon  mankind,  and  the  modern  philosophy  has 
taught  men  to  look  upon  each  other  as  brethren,  not  as 
enemies.     We  are  free,  we  are  united — persecution  is 


HENRY   GRATTAN  6$ 

dead;  the  Protestant  religion  is  the  child  of  the  consti- 
tution, the  Presbyterian  is  the  father,  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic is  not  an  enemy  to  it:  we  are  united  in  one  great 
national  community.  What  was  our  situation  formerly? 
We  were  a  gentry  without  pride,  and  a  people  without 
privilege;  every  man  was  convinced  of  his  rights,  but 
until  lately  every  man  had  neglected  them.  The  British 
constitution  lay  upon  the  ground  like  a  giant's  armor 
in  a  dwarf's  custody :  at  length  the  nation  asserted  itself, 
and  though  the  declaration  of  rights  was  not  carried, 
which  I  proposed  as  a  measure  safe  and  unobnoxious, 
yet  our  spirit  made  us  a  nation.  British  supremacy  fell 
upon  the  earth  like  a  spent  thunderbolt:  the  minister 
feared  to  look  at  it ;  the  people  were  fain  to  touch  it." 

Thus  did  he  make  the  unpopularity  of  the  Perpetual 
Mutiny  bill  do  battle  for  the  Declaration  of  Rights ;  thus 
did  he  feed  the  growing  sense  of  nationality;  thus  did 
he  associate  in  the  popular  mind  the  liberty  of  the  peo- 
ple ^vith  their  unanimity  and  religious  toleration.  The 
motion  was  defeated  in  the  house,  but  Grattan  had 
given  more  ammunition  to  the  people. 

And  the  people  were  awake  as  never  before.  Espe- 
cially w^as  this  true  of  the  Volunteers,  who  had  now 
come  to  be  associated  even  in  the  minds  of  the  most 
conservative  with  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  Attacked 
by  the  brutality  of  Lord  Clare,  their  motives  impugned, 
their  characters  assailed,  they  now  became  the  militant 
nucleus  of  the  movement  toward  national  independ- 
ence. In  their  beginning  representing  the  masses,  they 
now  became  truly  representative  of  every  Irish  ele- 
ment. The  aristocracy  joined  their  ranks.  The  worth, 
the  wealth,  the  genius  of  the  land  marched  with  the 
Volunteers.  And  at  their  head  was  that  Washington 
of  Erin — the  accomplished  Charlemont.    All  over  the 


64  JHE   IRISH   ORATORS 

island  these  men  were  on  the  march.  The  forty  thou- 
sand had  become  one  hundred  thousand.  The  reviews 
of  the  corps  by  the  old  aristocracy  of  the  country 
served  notice  now  that  they  had  become  synonymous 
with  Ireland.  Military  associations  sprang  up  as  if 
by  magic  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  country,  and 
the  men,  clothed  with  Irish  manufacture,  soon  took  on 
the  appearance  of  seasoned  soldiers  ready  to  do  battle 
upon  the  field.  The  women  wove  the  colors  that  they 
carried.  The  churches  bestowed  their  benediction  in 
their  contributions.  The  press  applauded  their  spirit 
and  urged  them  to  stand  firm.  The  government, 
amazed  and  alarmed,  contemplated  prosecutions  but 
quickly  abandoned  the  idea  in  the  realization  that  it 
would  precipitate  a  revolution.  When  Lord  Charle- 
mont  went  to  the  North  to  review  the  various  corps  of 
that  section  he  was  accompanied  by  Henry  Grattan, 
who  stood  by  his  side  and  saluted  the  men  upon  whom 
now  rested  the  salvation  of  the  state. 

Meanwhile  the  people  became  cognizant  of  their 
parliament.  They  had  become  educated  to  believe  that 
the  members  of  the  house  were  their  members,  by  all 
the  rules  of  political  ethics,  responsible  to  their  will. 
They  began  to  fiock  to  the  gallery  of  the  house,  and 
day  after  day  the  seven  hundred  seats  were  filled 
with  eager  patriots  looking  down  grimly  upon  the  par- 
liamentary battle-field.  The  sugar  tax  had  made  con- 
verts for  the  Declaration  of  Rights ;  the  Mutiny  bill  had 
played  into  the  hands  of  Grattan;  the  refusal  to  restore 
the  rights  of  the  Catholics  was  the  last  straw.  And 
then  came  the  great  historic  convention  of  the  Volun- 
teers at  Dungannon  and  the  resolution  to  the  effect 
that  "the  claim  of  any  body  of  men,  other  than  the 


HENRY    GRATTAN.  65 

king,  lords  and  commons  of  Ireland,  to  make  laws  to 
bind  this  kingdom  is  unconstitutional,  illegal,  and  a 
grievance." 

The  country  was  now  aflame.  The  resolution  of 
independence  was  echoed  defiantly  by  every  Volunteer 
corps  and  military  association.  The  spirit  of  revolu- 
tion was  in  the  air — and  at  the  head  of  the  revolution- 
ists stood  Grattan.  Just  at  this  juncture,  with  Ireland 
in  arms,  and  England  at  the  mercy  of  the  Volunteers, 
he  again  moved  an  address  to  the  king  on  the  Declara- 
tion of  Rights.  After  having  examined  from  every 
angle  the  claims  of  England  to  legislate  for  Ireland 
and  exposed  the  flimsy  foundation  on  which  they 
rested,  he  proceeded  in  language  that  must  have  sug- 
gested to  the  minister  the  rattle  of  musketry: 


"This  brings  the  claim  of  England  to  the  mere  ques- 
tion of  force:  it  is  a  right  which  Swift,  I  think,  has 
explained — the  right  of  the  grenadier  to  take  the  prop- 
erty of  the  naked  man.  I  add,  this  man  has  now  got- 
ten back  arms,  and  begs  to  get  back  his  property.  Thus 
the  question  remaining  is  the  question  of  ability;  and 
in  considering  this,  you  are  not  to  contemplate  alone 
the  difficulties  in  your  front;  you  are  to  look  back,  too, 
upon  the  strength  of  your  rear.  The  claim  by  conquest 
naturally  leads  to  the  subject  of  the  Volunteers.  You 
have  an  immense  force,  the  shape  of  a  much  greater 
of  different  religions,  but  of  one  political  faith,  kept 
up  for  three  years  defending  the  country;  for  the  gov- 
ernment took  away  her  troops  and  consigned  her  de- 
fense to  the  people — defending  the  government,  I  say, 
aiding  the  civil  power,  and  pledged  to  maintain  the 
liberty  of  Ireland  to  the  last  drop  of  their  blood.  Who 
is  this  body?  The  commons  of  Ireland — and  you  at 
the  head  of  them:  it  is  more — it  is  society  in  its  great- 
est possible  description ;  it  is  the  property — it  is  the  soul 


66  JHE   IRISH  .  ORATORS 

of  the  country  armed:  tuey,  fof  this  bo'dy,  have  yet  no 
adequate  name.  In  the  summer  of  1780  they  agree  to 
a  declaration  of  right;  in  the  summer  of  1781  they  hear 
that  the  French  are  at  sea;  in  the  heat  and  hurricane 
of  their  zeal  for  liberty,  they  stop;  without  delay,  they 
offer  to  march;  their  march  waits  only  for  the  com- 
mands of  the  Castle:  the  Castle  where  the  sagacious 
courtier  had  abandoned  his  uniform,  finds  it  prudent  to 
receive  a  self-armed  association:  that  self-armed  asso- 
ciation, this  age  has  beheld;  posterity  will  admire — will 
wonder.  The  delegates  of  that  self-armed  association 
enter  the  mansion  of  the  government,  ascend  the  steps, 
advance  to  the  presence  of  the  lord  lieutenant,  and  make 
a  tender  of  their  lives  and  fortunes,  with  the  form  and 
reception  of  an  authenticated  establishment.  A  painter 
might  here  display  and  contrast  the  loyalty  of  a  courtier 
with  that  of  a  Volunteer;  he  would  paint  the  courtier 
hurrying  off  his  uniform,  casting  away  his  arms,  filling 
his  pocket  with  the  public  money,  and  then  presenting 
to  his  sovereign  naked  servitude;  he  would  paint  the 
Volunteer  seizing  his  charters,  handling  his  arms,  form- 
ing his  columns,  improving  his  discipline,  demanding 
his  rights,  and  then,  at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  making 
a  tender  of  armed  allegiance.  He  had  no  objection  to 
die  by  the  side  of  England ;  but  he  must  be  found  dead 
with  her  charter  in  his  hand." 


Such  language  as  this,  voicing  the  unanimous  senti- 
ment of  the  people,  backed  by  one  Hundred  thousand 
determined  men  in  arms,  had  its  effect  upon  the  states- 
men in  London.  Dublin  Castle  found  itself  confront- 
ing concession  or  revolution.  The  English  element 
began  to  weaken.  And  as  it  began  to  weaken,  Grattan 
pushed  forward  with  an  announcement  that  he  would 
again  bring  forward  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  and 
moved  that  the  speaker  write  circular  letters  to  all 
members  ordering  them  to  be  in  their  seats  on  April 


HENRY    GRATTAN  67 

sixteenth,  1782.  The  motion  was  carried  and  now  for 
the  first  time  the  statesmen  in  England  really  under- 
stood the  import  of  the  proceedings  in  Ireland  during 
the  two  preceding  years.  Meanwhile  the  Whigs  had 
come  into  power,  and  Fox  and  Rockingham  had  not 
only  pretended  a  partiality  for  Grattan,  but  had  always 
asserted  their  devotion  to  the  Irish  cause.  Suddenly, 
unexpectedly,  they  found  themselves  facing  the  early 
necessity  of  making  their  pretensions  good.  They  now 
began  to  play  for  time,  to  negotiate  a  postponement  of 
the  question.  They  finally  enlisted  Charlemont  in  the 
cause  of  postponement  and  he  was  sent  to  persuade  Grat- 
tan's  agreement.  He  found  the  orator  on  a  sick  bed. 
"No  time,  no  time,"  he  exclaimed  impatiently;  and 
then  he  dictated  a  letter  to  Rockingham  to  the  effect 
that  they  could  not  delay,  that  they  were  pledged  to  the 
people,  that  they  could  not  postpone  the  question  be- 
cause the  measures  were  public  property.  Defeated  in 
this,  Fox  and  Rockingham  now  begged  both  Grattan 
and  Charlemont  to  accept  office  in  the  hope  of  thereby 
securing  time,  but  their  importunities  were  politely 
declined.  This  meant  the  Declaration  of  Rights  or 
war.  The  government  had  but  five  thousand  troops 
in  Ireland  and  there  were  one  hundred  thousand  Vol- 
unteers. 

Meanwhile  the  Duke  of  Portland  was  sent  over  as 
lord  lieutenant,  and  the  resolutions  to  be  proposed 
were  submitted  to  him.  He  read  them  carefully  and 
suggested  some  modifications  tending  to  soften  the 
blow  to  England  only  to  have  them  politely  rejected. 
Right  on  the  heels  of  this  rejection  Grattan  sent  over 
to  the  ministers  in  London  an  enumeration  of  his  de- 
mands :  the  relinquishment  of  the  legislative  and  appel- 


6S  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

lant  judicature  by  the  British  parliament,  or  the  repeal 
of  the  sixth  of  George  First;  the  discontinuance  of  the 
practise  of  altering  or  suppressing  bills;  the  repeal  of 
the  Perpetual  Mutiny  bill,  with  a  new  bill  limited  to 
two  years;  the  limitation  and  regulation  of  his  maj- 
esty's forces;  the  radical  modification  of  Poyning's 
law.  This  was  an  ultimatum — and  it  meant  concession 
or  war ! 

The  tables  were  now  verily  turned.  England  was  at 
the  mercy  of  the  sister  island.  She  could  not  postpone. 
She  could  not  bribe.  She  could  not  frighten.  She 
could  not  fight.  And  thus  it  was  she  surrendered  to 
the  inevitable  and  drifted. 

In  those  days  the  home  of  Grattan,  in  Dublin,  was 
directly  across  from  the  Castle  and  for  several  days 
preceding  the  date  set  for  the  Declaration,  the  house 
swarmed  with  anxious  visitors.  The  avenues  were 
blocked  with  carriages  of  celebrities  who  were  attend- 
ing, not  a  reception  at  the  Castle,  but  a  patriotic  levee 
at  Grattan's.  The  orator  was  in  ill  health,  but  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  moment  sustained  him,  and  when  the 
day  dawned  it  found  him  thoroughly  prepared.  The 
capital  swarmed  with  the  Volunteers — cavalry,  in- 
fantry, artillery,  on  the  quays,  the  bridges,  the  ap- 
proaches to  the  two  houses  of  parliament.  At  an 
early  hour  the  galleries  of  the  house  were  packed  with 
men  and  women  whose  faces  glowed  with  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  occasion.  The  regular  troops  made  a 
pathetic  showing  as  they  formed  a  passage  for  the 
lord  lieutenant  on  his  way  to  deliver  the  king's  mes- 
sage. Accompanied  by  Daly,  Burgh,  Yelverton  and 
the  father  of  Lord  Castlereagh,  Grattan  left  his  home 
and  went  to  the  house. 


HENRY    GRATTAN  69 

The  message  from  his  majesty  was  read.  The  mo- 
tion of  thanks  was  offered.  Then  Grattan  rose,  pale, 
worn,  bearing  evidence  of  his  illness  and  showing 
traces  of  intense  anxiety.  The  silence  of  a  sepulcher 
was  on  the  house.  The  crowded  galleries  leaned  for- 
ward. Then,  after  looking  proudly  upon  the  scene,  the 
orator  began  in  a  clear  exultant  tone : 

'T  am  now  to  address  a  free  people ;  ages  have  passed 
away,  and  this  is  the  first  moment  in  which  you  could 
be  distinguished  by  that  appellation. 

"I  have  spoken  on  the  subject  of  your  liberty  so  often, 
that  I  have  nothing  to  add,  and  have  only  to  admire 
by  what  heaven-directed  steps  you  have  proceeded  until 
the  whole  faculty  of  the  nation  is  braced  up  to  the  act 
of  her  own  deliverance. 

"I  found  Ireland  on  her  knees,  I  watched  over  her 
with  eternal  solicitude;  I  have  traced  her  progress  from 
injury  to  arms,  from  arms  to  liberty.  Spirit  of  Swift, 
spirit  of  Molyneux,  your  genius  has  prevailed.  Ireland 
is  now  a  nation.  In  that  new  character  I  hail  her,  and 
bowing  to  her  august  presence,  I  say,  esto  perpetua. 

"She  is  no  longer  a  wretched  colony,  returning  thanks 
to  her  governor  for  his  rapine,  and  to  her  king  for  his 
oppression ;  nor  is  she  now  a  squabbling,  fretful  sectary, 
perplexing  her  little  wits,  and  firing  her  furious  stat- 
utes with  bigotry,  sophistries,  disabilities  and  death,  to 
transmit  to  posterity  insignificance  and  war." 

With  a  glowing  enthusiasm  he  compared  the  state 
of  Ireland  with  that  of  less  fortunate  nations,  glorified 
in  the  fact  that  she  had  won  her  liberty  rather  than 
coaxed  it  from  concessions  that  might  be  withdrawn, 
declared  that  the  repeal  of  the  English  claim  under  the 
operation  of  a  treaty  would  be  irrevocable,  and  ex- 
pressed his  satisfaction  that  the  people  of  all  religions 


70  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

were  a  party  to  the  treaty  and  were  bound  to  preserve 
it.  He  then  passed  on  to  the  grievances  that  had 
wrought  the  revolution. 

"Let  other  nations,"  he  said,  "be  deceived  by  the  soph- 
istry of  courts.  Ireland  has  studied  politics  in  the 
lair  of  oppression,  and,  taught  by  suffering,  compre- 
hends the  rights  of  subjects  and  the  duty  of  kings.  Let 
other  nations  imagine  that  subjects  are  made  for  the 
monarch,  but  we  conceive  that  kings  and  parliaments, 
like  kings,  are  made  for  the  subjects.  The  house  of 
commons,  honorable  and  right  honorable  as  it  may  be; 
the  lords,  noble  and  illustrious  as  we  pronounce  them, 
are  not  original,  but  derivative.  Session  after  session 
they  move  their  periodical  orbit  about  the  source  of 
their  being,  the  nation ;  even  the  king's  majesty  must 
fulfil  his  due  and  tributary  course  round  that  great  lu- 
minary; and  created  by  its  beam,  and  upheld  by  its 
attraction,  must  incline  to  that  light,  or  go  out  of  the 
.  system." 

Enumerating  the  wrongs  perpetrated  upon  Ireland 
and  denying  the  authority  upon  which  they  were 
wrought  he  proceeded  : 

"The  government  has  contended  for  the  usurpation 
'and  the  people  for  the  laws.  His  majesty's  late  minis- 
ters imagined  that  they  had  quelled  the  country  when 
jthey  had  bought  the  newspapers:  and  they  represented 
I  us  as  wild  men,  and  our  cause  as  visionary;  and  they 
■pensioned  a  set  of  wretches  to  abuse  both:  but  we  took 
little  account  of  them  or  their  proceedings,  and  we 
!  waited  and  we  watched,  and  we  moved,  as  it  were,  on 
our  native  hills,  with  the  minor  remains  of  our  parlia- 
mentary army,  until  the  minority  became  Ireland." 

With  a  few  explanatory  words  he  concluded  by 
moving  the  Declaration  of  Rights.    [The  government, 


HENRY   GRATTAN  71 

helpless  and  without  a  policy,  offered  no  resistance, 
and  the  motion  carried  without  a  division.  The  news 
spread  like  lightning.  The  Volunteers  sustained  their 
reputation  by  the  dignity  of  their  decorum,  but  the 
people  of  Dublin  gave  way  to  transports  of  enthusi- 
asm, and  at  night  the  city  was  illuminated.  The  next 
day  the  Volunteers  of  Leicester,  with  Henry  Flood  in 
the  chair,  passed  resolutions  supporting  Grattan  and 
the  Declaration  and  pledging  their  lives  and  fortunes. 

During  the  necessary  delay  on  the  part  of  England 
to  accede  the  demands,  Grattan  remained  quietly  in 
his  home,  watching  the  proceedings  across  the  channel 
with  the  keenest  anxiety,  for  he  had  reached  the  firm 
determination  that  in  the  event  of  refusal  he  would 
make  his  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles.  He  gave  out 
that  he  had  gone  to  the  country  and  held  no  inter- 
course with  the  Castle.  In  due  time,  Charles  James 
Fox,  acting  in  good  faith,  took  the  necessary  steps  on 
the  part  of  England — and  Ireland  achieved  her  legis- 
lative independence ! 

This  concludes  the  most  glorious  and  the  happiest 
period  of  Grattan's  career.  He  was  to  serve  his  coun- 
try with  wonderful  brilliancy  and  power  for  many 
years  to  come,  but  never  again  was  he  to  attain  such 
heights  of  achievement  for  his  people.  He  had  traced 
the  progress  of  Ireland  "from  injury  to  arms,  from 
arms  to  liberty" — and  that  was  to  constitute  his  claims 
on  immortality. 

Ill 

Extreme  popularity  in  the  case  of  public  men  is  al- 
most invariably  followed  with  reaction,  .and  it  was  hot 


n  JHE    IRISH    ORATORS 

long  until  the  popular  idol  to  whom  the  grateful  nation 
had  voted  a  home  after  the  passage  of  the  Bill  of 
Rights  was  made  to  feel  the  sharp  tooth  of  ingrati- 
tude. The  causes  of  this  reaction  in  the  case  of  Grat- 
tan  have  been  set  forth  in  the  sketch  of  Flood  who 
contributed,  not  a  little,  to  the  poisoning  of  the  public 
mind  in  regard  to  his  great  rival.  The  controversy 
over  simple  repeal  and  the  action  of  the  Volunteers, 
so  embittered  a  large  portion  of  his  former  followers 
that  a  conspiracy  was  actually  formed  to  assault  him 
one  night  on  his  way  home  from  a  dinner  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  military  organizations.  Confident  of  the 
rectitude  of  his  intentions,  and  convinced  of  the  wis- 
dom of  his  course  Grattan  maintained  a  dignified  atti- 
tude throughout,  and  even  after  the  famous  exchange 
of  philippics  with  Flood,  the  younger  man  supported 
the  older  in  his  fight  for  the  parliamentary  reform 
proposed  by  the  Volunteers'  convention.  We  learn  in 
the  correspondence  between  the  minister  and  the  lord 
lieutenant  that  the  government  had  counted  upon  the 
opposition  of  Grattan  to  the  proposed  reform  because 
of  the  relations  of  the  two  men,  but  it  had  failed  to 
take  into  consideration  the  truly  noble  nature  of  the 
great  orator  who  had  given  Ireland  her  independence. 
The  first  convincing  evidence  of  the  unfriendly  atti- 
tude of  the  English  ministry,  and  of  the  disposition  to 
resort  to  trickery  in  their  dealings  with  Ireland  came 
with  the  double  dealing  incident  to  the  commercial 
propositions.  The  prosperity  of  Ireland  was  affected 
in  1783  by  the  distress  of  the  agricultural  classes 
which  reached  every  element  in  the  country  and  led  to 
the  clamor  for  protecting  duties  for  the  manufac- 
turers.   Grattan  gave  a  reluctant  consent  to  the  propo- 


HENRY    GRATTAN  73 

sitions  which  were  to  be  incorporated  in  a  treaty  be- 
tween the  two  islands  whereby  Ireland  was  to  obtain 
the  right  to  export  into  England  through  Ireland,  in 
return  for  the  concession  by  Ireland  of  the  surplus  of 
the  hereditary  revenue.  The  propositions  while  seem- 
ingly good  from  the  commercial  point  of  view,  were 
not  considered  wise  by  Grattan  as  a  political  measure, 
but  he  yielded  to  the  popular  demand  and  gave  them 
his  support.  Acting  upon  the  supposition  that  every- 
thing had  been  agreed  to,  the  Irish  parliament  voted 
the  payment  of  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
pounds  as  her  part  of  the  bargain,  but  she  had  hardly 
given  this  evidence  of  her  good  faith  when  Pitt 
brought  into  the  English  parliament  eighteen  entirely 
new  propositions  that  were  utterly  impossible  from 
the  Irish  point  of  view.  One  of  these  propositions 
would  have  bound  Ireland  to  adopt  such  laws  as  Eng- 
land might  pass  relating  to  her  commercial  concerns. 
When  these  propositions,  conceived  in  bad  faith  and 
in  a  spirit  of  tricker}^,  were  submitted  to  the  Irish  par- 
liament Grattan  bitterly  assailed  them  as  being  at  war 
with  the  principles  of  the  Irish  revolution. 

"It  is  a  market  for  a  constitution,"  he  said,  "and  a 
logic  applicable  to  barter  only,  is  applied  to  freedom. 
To  qualify  this  dereliction  of  every  principle  and  power, 
the  surrender  is  made  constitutional,  that  is,  the  Brit- 
ish market  for  the  Irish  constitution ;  the  shadow  of  a 
market  for  the  substance  of  a  constitution.  You  are 
to  reserve  an  option,  trade  or  liberty;  if  you  mean  to 
come  to  the  British  market,  you  must  pass  under  the 
British  yoke.  I  object  to  this  principle  in  every  shape, 
whether  you  are,  as  the  resolution  was  first  worded, 
directly  to  transfer  legislative  power  to  the  British  par- 
liament; whether,  as  it  was  afterward  altered,  you  are 


74  JHE    IRISH    ORATORS 

to  covenant  to  subscribe  her  acts;  or  whether,  as  it  is 
now  softened,  you  are  to  take  the  chance  of  the  British 
market,  so  long  as  you  waive  the  blessings  of  the  Brit- 
ish constitution — terms  dishonorable,  derogatory,  incap- 
able of  forming  the  foundation  of  any  fair  and  friendly 
settlement,  injurious  to  the  political  morality  of  the  na- 
tion. I  would  not  harbor  a  slavish  principle,  nor  give 
it  the  hospitality  of  a  night's  lodging  in  a  land  of  liberty. 
Slavery  is  like  any  other  vice,  tolerate,  and  you  embrace. 
You  should  guard  your  constitution  by  settled  maxims 
of  honor,  as  well  as  wholesome  rules  of  law;  and  one 
maxim  should  be  never  to  tolerate  a  condition  which 
trenches  on  the  privilege  of  parliament,  or  derogates 
from  the  pride  of  the  island.  Liberal  in  matters  of  rev- 
enue, practical  in  matters  of  commerce;  on  these  sub- 
jects I  would  be  inexorable;  if  the  genius  of  old  Eng- 
land came  to  that  bar,  with  the  British  constitution  in 
one  hand,  and  in  the  other  an  offer  of  all  that  England 
retains,  or  all  that  she  has  lost  of  commerce,  I  should 
turn  my  back  on  the  latter,  and  pay  my  obeisance  to 
the  blessings  of  her  constitution;  for  that  constitution 
will  give  you  commerce,  and  it  was  the  loss  of  that  con- 
stitution which  deprived  you  of  commerce.  Why  are 
you  not  now  a  woolen  country?  Because  another  coun- 
try regulated  your  trade.  Why  are  you  not  now  a 
country  of  re-export?  Because  another  country  regu- 
lated your  navigation.  I  oppose  the  original  terms  as 
slavish,  and  I  oppose  the  conditional  clause  as  an  artful 
way  of  introducing  slavery,  of  soothing  a  high-spirited 
nation  into  submission  by  the  ignominious  delusion  that 
she  may  shake  off  the  yoke  when  she  pleases,  and  once 
more  become  a  free  people.  The  direct  unconstitutional 
proposition  could  not  have  been  listened  to,  and  there- 
fore resort  is  had  to  the  onl}''  possible  chance  of  destroy- 
ing the  liberty  of  the  people,  by  holding  up  the  bright 
reversion  of  the  British  constitution,  as  the  speculation 
of  future  liberty,  as  a  consolation  for  present  submis- 
sion." 

The  defeat  of  these  propositions  had  two  important 


HENRY    GRATTAN  75 

effects :  it  restored  the  popularity  of  Qrattan,  and  in- 
curred for  Ireland  that  bitter  enmity  in  Pitt  which 
was  to  persist  with  a  devilish  tenacity  until  the  fateful 
purchase  of  the  liberties  of  the  Irish  people.  The  spir- 
ited opposition  of  Grattan  to  the  Pitt  program  revived 
the  enthusiasm  and  confidence  of  the  nation,  and 
when,  in  speaking  upon  the  address  to  the  lord  lieuten- 
ant a  little  later,  the  popular  tribune,  in  reiterating  his 
warning  against  the  propositions,  concluded  with  the 
promise  to  persist  in  his  opposition : 

"Having  expressed  my  fears  lest  this  bill  should  be 
revived,  I  do  declare  that  if  such  a  measure,  or  any- 
thing like  it,  should  hereafter  be  produced  I  shall  be 
in  my  place  to  oppose  the  yoke,  to  oppose  the  system 
founded  upon  principles  of  empire,  not  commerce,  rec- 
ommended by  the  language  of  insult,  justified  by  depre- 
cating the  real  value  and  importance  of  Ireland,  and 
accompanied  with  the  surrender  of  the  constitution  and 
commerce,  and  of  everything  that  is  dear  to  this  coun- 
try." 

It  was  such  a  spirit  as  that  indicated  in  Grattan's 
speeches  against  the  Pitt  propositions  that  convinced 
the  English  ministers  that  Ireland  proposed  to  take 
her  legislative  independence  seriously,  and  it  was  prob- 
ably at  this  time  that  the  systematic  corruption  of  the 
Irish  parliament  was  begun  through  the  bribery  of 
pensions.  On  this  evil  Grattan  had  pronounced  views. 
It  was  a  realization  of  this  danger  which  had  impelled 
him  to  support  Flood's  reform  bill.  It  now  led  him 
to  support  the  movement  to  correct  the  pension  evil. 
When  in  the  session  of  1785  the  subject  was  called  to 
the  attention  of  the  house,  Grattan  startled  the  runners 
of  the  Castle  by  having  the  entire  pension  list  read  and 


76  THE    IRISH    OR.\TORS 

c 

made  public.  By  thus  turning  on  the  light  of  publicity- 
he  hoped  to  deter  those  members  who  might  be  con- 
templating the  sale  of  their  influence.  Nor  did  he  stop 
v.ith  that  alone.  He  follovred  it  up  with  a  speech  of 
tremendous  force,  in  which  he  called  attention  to  the 
enorm.ous  increase  in  the  pension  list,  and  laid  stress 
upon  the  fact  that  it  had  attained  proportions  equal  to 
that  of  Great  Britain. 

"Another  argument,"  he  said,  "advanced  in  its  de- 
fense, tells  you  that  the  new  pension  list,  or  the  last 
catalogue,  is  small;  Sir,  it  is  greater  than  the  produce 
of  your  new  tax  on  hawkers  and  pedlers.  Why  con- 
tinue that  tax?  When  I  see  the  state  repose  itself  on 
beggars,  I  pity  and  submit.  But  when  I  see  the  state 
give  away  its  taxes  thus  eviscerated  from  the  poor; 
when  I  see  government  come  to  the  poor  man's  hovel 
for  a  part  of  his  loaf,  to  scatter  it;  when  I  see  govern- 
ment tax  the  pedler  to  pamper  the  pensioner,  I  blush 
for  the  extortion  of  the  state,  and  reprobate  an  offense, 
that  may  be  well  called  prodigality  of  rapine. 

"Sir,  when  gentlemen  say  that  the  new  charge  for 
pensions  is  small,  let  me  assure  them  they  need  not 
be  alarmed ;  the  charge  will  be  much  greater ;  for,  unless 
your  interposition  should  deter,  what  else  is  there  to 
check  it  ?  Will  public  poverty  ?  No.  New  taxes  ?  No. 
Gratitude  for  those  taxes  ?  No.  Principle  ?  No.  Pro- 
fession? No.  The  love  of  fame  or  sense  of  infamy? 
No.  Confined  to  no  one  description  of  merit,  or  want 
of  character,  under  the  authority  of  that  list,  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  Ireland  have  pretensions  to  become 
a  public  encumbrance;  so  that,  since  government  went 
so  far,  I  marvel  that  they  have  stopped,  unless  the  pen 
fell  out  of  their  hand  from  fatigue,  for  it  could  not  be 
from  principle. 

"No,  Sir,  this  list  will  go  on ;  it  will  go  on  till  the 
merchant  shall  feel  it;  until  the  manufacturer  shall  feel 
it;  until  the  pension  list  shall  take  in  its  own  hands  the 


HENRY  GRATTAN         77^ 

key  of  taxation;  and  instead  of  taxing  license  to  sell, 
shall  tax  the  article  and  the  manufacturer  itself ;  until 
we  shall  lose  our  great  commercial  resource,  a  compara- 
tive exemption  from  taxes,  the  gift  of  our  poverty,  and 
get  an  accumulation  of  taxes  to  be  the  companion  of 
our  poverty;  until  public  indignation  shall  cry  shame 
upon  us,  and  the  morality  of  a  serious  and  offended 
community  shall  call  out  for  the  interposition  of  the 
law." 


In  the  light  of  what  the  world  now  knows  of  the 
methods  resorted  to  by  Pitt  and  his  Castle  agents  to 
influence  the  legislation  of  Ireland  and  ultimately  to 
purchase  the  liberty  of  the  people,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  speeches  of  Grattan,  exposing  the  enormity  of 
the  pension  evil,  should  have  given  great  umbrage  to 
the  government.  A  little  later,  in  the  discussion  of 
the  Navigation  Act,  he  increased  his  unpopularity  in 
ministerial  circles  by  insisting  and  proving  that  the 
act  was  intended  to  apply  to  Ireland  as  well  as  Eng- 
land. It  was  becoming  increasingly  impossible  for  a 
man  to  be  a  patriot  in  parliament  without  antagoniz- 
ing the  government  in  all  its  policies.  It  was  becoming 
almost  impossible  successfully  to  oppose  the  govern- 
ment because  of  the  systematic  corruption  of  members 
to  which  it  was  now  resorting. 


IV 


It  was  In  1786  that  Grattan  began  his  fight  for  the 
righting  of  the  wrongs  due  to  tithes.  The  evils  grow- 
ing out  of  tithes  had  now  become  a  serious  menace  to 
the  tranquillity  of  the  country.  It  was  the  period  of 
the  Whiteboy  disturbances.     Instead  of  going  into 


7S  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

the  cause  of  this  extensive  uprising  with  the  view  to 
the  tranquihzing  of  the  people  through  a  pohcy  of 
reformation,  Lord  Clare  brought  in  and  pushed  to 
passage  a  semi-barbarous  bill  to  prevent  tumultuous  up- 
risings, a  bill  so  brutal  that  Grattan  aptly  compared  it 
to  the  laws  of  Draco.  Although  unable  to  prevent  its 
passage  Grattan  did  succeed  in  eliminating  the  worst 
feature,  which  authorized  the  destruction  of  a  Catholic 
church  in  the  event  an  unlawful  oath  should  be  ad- 
ministered, not  in  it,  but  adjoining  it !  The  savagery 
of  the  government  in  dealing  with  the  disturbances, 
directed  Grattan's  attention  to  the  evil  of  tithes,  an 
evil  which  reduced  the  peasantry  to  a  condition  as 
helpless  and  hopeless  as  that  of  the  peasantry  of  France 
before  the  revolution.  Laws  were  enacted,  not  for  the 
protection  of  the  poor  against  the  extortion  of  the 
clergy  and  their  cruel  collectors,  but  for  the  purpose 
of  facilitating  the  shameful  robbery.  The  peasants 
were  being  reduced  to  a  pitiful  state  of  poverty,  yet 
when  attention  was  directed  to  their  condition  by 
Grattan,  it  was  insolently  asserted  by  Lord  Clare  that 
the  blame  was  due  entirely  to  the  indolence  of  the 
people.  After  a  few  preliminary  battles,  Grattan  of- 
fered a  resolution  providing  for  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  to  ascertain  if  the  discontent  in  the  southern 
part  of  Ireland  was  due  to  tithes,  and,  if  so,  to  recom- 
mend some  plan  of  amelioration.  His  speech  on  this 
occasion,  delivered  February  fourteenth,  1788,  was 
one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  effective  of  his  life.  His 
heart  had  been  deeply  touched  by  the  suffering  of  the 
people,  his  indignation  aroused  by  the  brutality  of  the 
authorities,  his  contempt  inflamed  by  the  rank  hypoc- 
risy of  a  large  portion  of  the  clergy  who  proposed, 


HENRY   GRATTAN  79 

while  preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Nazarene,  to  extort 
from  the  poor  that  they  might  live  in  luxury  and  ease. 
In  a  three  hours'  speech,  which  was  statesmanlike, 
philosophic  and  philanthropic,  he  commanded  the  ad- 
miring attention  of  the  house  and  even  elicited  from 
Lord  Clare  the  compliment  that  it  was  one  of  the  most 
marvelous  displays  of  eloquence  ever  heard  in  the 
house  of  commons.  After  having  set  forth  the  rea- 
sons demanding  an  inquiry  he  proceeded : 

"Here  let  me  return  to  and  repeat  the  allegations, 
and  call  upon  you  once  more  to  make  the  inquiry.  It 
is  alleged  that  in  certain  parishes  of  the  south  tithe  has 
been  demanded  and  paid  for  what,  by  law,  was  not 
liable  to  tithe;  and  that  the  ecclesiastical  courts  have 
countenanced  the  illegal  exaction ;  and  evidence  is  of- 
fered at  your  bar  to  prove  the  charges  on  oath. 

''Will  you  deny  the  fact?  Will  you  justify  the  fact? 
Will  you  inquire  into  it? 

"It  is  alleged  that  tithe  proctors,  in  certain  parishes 
of  the  south,  do  exact  fees  for  agency,  oppressive  and 
illegal ;  and  evidence  to  prove  the  charge  is  offered  on 
oath.  Will  you  deny  the  fact?  Will  you  justify  the 
fact?    Will  you  inquire  into  it? 

"It  is  alleged  that  in  certain  parishes  of  the  south 
tithes  have  been  excessive,  and  have  observed  no  equity 
for  the  poor,  the  husbandman,  or  the  manufacturer ;  and 
evidence  is  offered  to  prove  this  charge  on  oath. 

"Will  you  deny  the  fact?  Will  you  justify  the  fact? 
Will  you  inquire  into  it? 

"It  is  alleged  that  in  certain  parishes  of  the  south 
ratages  for  tithes  have  greatly  and  unconscionably  in- 
creased ;  and  evidence  is  offered  to  prove  this  charge 
on  oath.  Will  you  deny  the  fact?  Will  you  justify  the 
fact?     Will  you  inquire  into  it? 

"It  is  alleged  that  in  certain  parishes  of  the  south 
the  parishioners  have  duly  and  legally  set  out  their  tithe, 
and  given  due  notice ;  but  that  no  persons  have  attended 


80  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

on  the  part  of  the  proctor  or  parson,  under  expectation, 
it  is  apprehended,  of  getting  some  new  method  of  re- 
covery, tending  to  deprive  the  parish  of  the  benefit  of 
its  ancient  right,  that  of  setting  out  their  tithe;  and  evi- 
dence is  offered  to  prove  this  charge  on  oath. 

"It  is  alleged  that  in  certain  parishes  of  the  south 
tithe-farmers  have  oppressed  and  do  oppress  his  majes- 
ty*s  subjects  by  various  extortions,  abuses  of  law,  or 
breaches  of  the  same ;  and  evidence  is  offered  to  prove 
this  charge  on  oath.  Here,  once  more,  I  ask  you,  will 
you  deny  the  fact?  Will  you  justify  the  fact?  Will 
you  inquire  into  it? 

In  developing  his  views  the  orator  made  it  clear 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  deprive  the  clergy  of  the 
established  church  of  just  compensation,  and  he 
pointed  to  the  methods  in  Holland  and  Scotland  where 
the  clergy  was  compensated  at  a  fixed  salary.  And  in 
concluding  he  appealed  to  the  better  nature  of  the 
house  in  a  passage  of  splendid  beauty  and  eloquence : 

"Let  bigotry  and  schism,  the  zealot's  fire,  the  high 
priest's  intolerance  through  all  their  discordancy  trem- 
ble, while  an  enlightened  parliament,  with  arms  of  gen- 
eral protection,  overarches  the  whole  community,  and 
roots  the  Protestant  ascendency  in  the  sovereign  mercy 
of  its  nature.  Laws  of  operation,  perhaps  necessary, 
certainly  severe,  you  have  put  forth  already,  but  your 
great  engine  of  power  you  have  hitherto  kept  back ;  that 
engine,  which  the  pride  of  the  bigot,  nor  the  spite  of 
the  zealot,  nor  the  ambition  of  the  high  priest,  nor  the 
arsenal  of  the  conqueror,  nor  the  inquisition,  with  its 
jaded  rack  and  pale  criminal,  never  thought  of ;  the  en- 
gine which,  armed  with  physical  and  moral  blessings, 
comes  forth  and  overlays  mankind  with  services — the 
engine  of  redress ;  this  is  government,  and  this  is  the 
only  description  of  government  worth  your  ambition. 
Were  I  to  raise  you  to  a  great  act,  I  should  not  recur 
to  the  history  of  other  nations;   I   should  recite  your 


HENRY   GRATTAN  81 

own  acts,  and  set  you  in  emulation  with  yourselves.  Do 
you  remember  that  night  when  you  gave  your  country 
a  free  trade,  and  with  your  own  hands  opened  all  her 
harbors?  That  night  when  you  gave  her  a  free  consti- 
tution, and  broke  the  chains  of  a  century,  while  Eng- 
land, eclipsed  at  your  glory  and  your  island,  rose,  as  it 
were,  from  its  bed  and  got  nearer  to  the  sun?  In  the 
arts  that  polish  life,  the  inventions  that  accommodate, 
the  manufactures  which  adorn  it,  you  will  be  for  many 
years  inferior  to  some  other  parts  of  Europe ;  but,  to 
nurse  a  growing  people,  to  mature  a  struggling  though 
hardy  community,  to  mold,  to  multiply,  to  consolidate, 
to  inspire  and  to  exalt  a  young  nation,  be  these  your 
barbarous  accomplishments." 

This  appeal,  however,  failed  to  affect  favorably  the 
action  of  the  house  however  much  it  undoubtedly  im- 
pressed it,  and  Grattan  renewed  his  fight  on  the  tithe 
evils  from  time  to  time,  but  without  avail.  The  fact 
that  the  Catholics  had  now  been  given  the  right  to 
own  property  and  consequently  compelled  to  pay 
tithes  to  a  religion  they  did  not  adhere  to  was  used 
by  Grattan  as  an  additional  argument  in  favor  of  some 
reformation  in  the  system.  He  argued  that  this  would 
divide  the  country  on  religious  as  well  as  political 
grounds,  an  evil  he  considered  dangerous  to  the  state. 
Denounced  by  the  clergy,  he  retorted  with  fine  scorn 
and  sarcasm,  reflecting  upon  the  hypocrisy  of  gentle- 
men who  appeared  to  wear  the  livery  of  the  court  of 
Heaven  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  the 
poor. 

The  year  1789  was  to  be  a  fateful  one  for  Ireland. 
It  was  the  year  of  the  king's  illness  and  the  contro- 
versy regarding  the  regency.  The  contest  in  England 
grew  out  of  the  disposition  of  the  Whigs  to  place  the 


82  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

prince  in  absolute  control  because  of  his  friendly  rela- 
tions with  Fox  and  Sheridan,  while  Pitt,  posing  as  the 
champion  of  the  king,  and  determined  upon  holding 
his  own  authority,  insisted  on  restrictions.  The  Grat- 
tan  following  in  Ireland  had  strong  leanings  toward 
the  Whigs,  and  it  was  the  belief  of  Grattan  that  with 
the  prince  in  authority  much  might  be  accomplished 
for  Ireland.  He  had  a  program  of  reforms  which 
comprehended  a  pension  bill,  a  place  bill,  a  responsi- 
bility bill,  and  a  new  police  bill,  and  the  possibility  of 
the  accession  to  unrestricted  authority  of  the  prince 
was  rich  in  hope.  Lord  Clare,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  Grattan's  party  suddenly  became  the  majority 
through  the  accession  of  the  sycophants  who  crawl 
into  the  circle  of  authority,  led  a  bitter  fight  in  behalf 
of  Pitt,  thereby  feathering  his  nest  for  the  future; 
and  Lord  Buckingham,  the  lord  lieutenant  took  his 
stand  naturally  with  Pitt  and  Clare. 

In  this  contest  Grattan  carried  the  house  with  him 
and  an  address  to  the  prince  was  voted  asking  him  to 
assume  the  government  of  Ireland.  This  precipitated 
an  immediate  conflict  with  Buckingham,  who  refused, 
on  advice  of  Clare,  to  transmit  the  address.  This  re- 
fusal was  sharply  rebuked  by  the  house  on  motion  of 
Grattan,  and  the  lord  lieutenant  was  censured  for  his 
conduct  by  parliament.  Instead  of  resigning  after  this, 
Buckingham,  in  ugly  mood,  held  on,  and  set  to  work 
to  corrupt  the  parliament  by  selling  peerages  for 
money  and  using  the  money  in  buying  up  members  of 
the  house  of  commons.  In  anticipation  of  a  possible 
discontinuance  of  parliament  by  act  of  the  lord  lieu- 
tenant, Grattan  proposed  a  short  money  bill,  and  sup- 
plies were  granted  for  two  months  only.     This  done, 


HENRY   GRATTAN  83 

he  introduced  his  reform  measures  and  began  to  press 
them  upon  the  house  and  with  every  prospect  of  suc- 
cess. 

Then  came  the  announcement  of  the  recovery  of 
the  king.  This  was  a  tragedy  for  Ireland.  Pitt,  who 
had  been  affronted  by  the  action  of  the  Irish  par- 
liament, entered  heartily  into  Buckingham's  policy  of 
corruption,  and  the  fair  weather  friends  of  reform 
flocked  back  to  their  old  Castle  standard.  Henceforth 
all  propositions  of  reformation  were  to  be  easily  voted 
down.  So  serious  had  the  situation  now  become  that 
the  friends  of  the  revolution  of  1782  organized  the 
Whig  club  with  the  object  of  obtaining  the  internal  re- 
form of  parliament  and  of  preventing  the  consumma- 
tion of  a  union,  which  had  now  been  openly  broached. 
Before  considering  Grattan's  persistent  fight  against 
the  policy  of  the  government,  we  shall  take  up  the  one 
reform  which  he  was  able  to  effect  through  his  clever 
manipulation  of  the  Catholic  question. 


This  question  became  vital  about  1790.  It  was 
forced  upon  the  Irish  government,  partly  because  of 
the  revolutionary  uprising  in  France  which  had  fright- 
ened the  minister,  and  partly  because  of  the  conces- 
sions made  to  the  Catholics  of  England.  About  this 
time,  following  a  brutal  rebuff  from  Westmoreland, 
then  lord  lieutenant,  the  Catholics  sent  a  deputation 
to  England,  with  John  Keogh  at  it  head,  to  present  to 
the  government  a  list  of  the  penal  laws  and  ask  for 
their  repeal.  This  deputation  was  able  to  carry  back 
to  Ireland  the  assurance  that  there  would  be  no  objec- 


84  .THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

Hon  if  the  Irish  parliament  opened  the  profession  of 
law  to  Catholics,  and  conferred  eligibility  for  the 
offices  of  sheriff,  county  magistrates  and  grand  jurors. 
With  this  assurance  the  Catholics  applied  to  Grat- 
tan.  Broad  enough  to  subordinate  any  desire  for 
personal  glory  to  the  success  of  the  Catholic  cause  he 
strongly  advised  that  his  championship  of  the  pro- 
posed measure  would  make  it  a  party  question  and 
would  prejudice  the  government,  which  was  in  the 
majority.  After  a  stormy  series  of  discussions,  in 
which  Grattan  participated  on  the  side  of  Catholic 
concession,  the  High  Church  party,  with  Lord  Clare 
at  their  head,  were  shocked  to  hear  in  the  message 
from  the  throne  in  January,  1793,  the  suggestion  that 
the  Catholic  question  be  taken  up  and  considered  with 
the  view  to  such  legislation  as  would  be  satisfactory  to 
Catholic  subjects.  A  little  later  the  government 
brought  in  a  bill  which  gave  the  Catholics  a  vote  at 
elections,  enabled  them  to  sit  as  grand  jurors,  author- 
ized the  endowment  of  schools  and  colleges,  permitted 
them  to  carry  arms  when  possessed  of  a  certain  amount 
of  property,  empowered  them  to  hold  civil  offices  un- 
der certain  restrictions,  and  disallowed  challenges 
against  them  on  petit  juries.  This  bill,  while  furiously 
fought  by  the  notorious  Doctor  Duigenan,  made  prog- 
ress, and  in  February,  the  final  debate  began.  It  was 
assailed  by  the  bigots  because  it  smacked  slightly  of 
toleration,  and  by  Grattan  and  Curran  on  the  ground 
that  it  should  not  stop  short  of  making  the  Catholic 
subject  eligible  to  a  seat  in  parliament.  Grattan's 
speech  on  this  occasion  was  a  magnificent  argument 
for  toleration  and  he  is  described  by  eye  witnesses  as 
having  spoken  with  "a  divine  enthusiasm." 


HENRY   GRATTAN  85 

"Conquerors,  or  tyrants  proceeding  from  conquer- 
ors," he  said,  "have  scarcely  ever  for  any  length  of 
time  governed  by  those  partial  disabilities ;  but  a  peo- 
ple, so  to  govern  itself,  or  rather,  under  the  name  of 
government,  so  to  exclude  itself,  the  industrious,  the 
opulent,  the  useful;  that  part  that  feeds  you  with  its 
industry,  and  supplies  you  with  its  taxes,  weaves  that 
you  may  wear,  and  plows  that  you  may  eat:  to  exclude 
a  body  so  useful,  so  numerous,  and  that  forever;  and, 
in  the  meantime  to  tax  them  ad  libitum,  and  occasion- 
ally to  pledge  their  lives  and  fortunes — for  what?  For 
their  disfranchisement.  It  can  not  be  done;  continue 
it,  and  you  expect  from  your  laws  what  it  were  blas- 
phemy to  ask  from  your  Alaker.  Such  a  policy  always 
turns  on  the  inventor,  and  bruises  him  under  the  stroke 
of  the  scepter  or  the  sword,  or  sinks  him  under  accumu- 
lation of  debt  and  loss  of  dominion.  Need  I  go  to  in- 
stances? What  was  the  case  of  Ireland,  enslaved  for 
a  century,  and  withered  and  blasted  by  her  Protestant 
ascendency,  like  a  shattered  oak  scathed  on  its  hill  by 
the  fires  of  its  own  intolerance?  What  lost  England 
America  but  such  a  policy?  An  attempt  to  bind  men 
by  a  parliament  in  which  they  are  not  represented ;  such 
an  attempt  as  some  would  now  continue  to  practise  on 
the  Catholics,  and  involve  England.  What  was  it  saved 
Ireland  to  England  but  the  contrary  policy?  I  have 
seen  these  principles  of  liberty  verified  by  yourselves. 
I  have  heard  addresses  from  counties  and  cities  here 
on  the  subject  of  the  slave  trade  to  Mr.  Wilberforce, 
thanking  him  for  his  efforts  to  set  free  a  distressed  peo- 
ple ;  has  your  pity  traversed  leagues  of  sea  to  sit  down 
by  the  black  boy  on  the  coast  of  Guinea ;  and  have  you 
forgot  the  man  at  home,  by  your  side,  your  brother? 
Come,  then,  and  by  one  great  act  cancel  this  code,  and 
prepare  your  mind  for  that  bright  order  of  time  which 
now  seems  to  touch  your  condition." 

The  bill,  with  some  alterations,  passed  and  became 
a  law,  there1)y  placing  the  Catholic,  in  theory,  on  a 


86  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

level  with  the  Protestant  in  many  respects.  While  the 
measure  was  fathered  by  the  government,  the  power 
that  loomed  behind,  cleverly  pulling  on  the  ropes,  was 
Henry  Grattan,  and  this  was  thoroughly  understood 
both  by  the  Catholics  and  by  the  liberals  of  England. 
Edmund  Burke  wrote  him  that  the  passage  of  the  law 
was  "the  greatest  effort  of  his  genius'*  and  that  his 
great  abilities  were  "never  more  distinguished  or  in  a 
better  cause." 

It  was  the  hope  of  Grattan  at  the  time  of  the  passage 
of  this  measure  that  further  concessions  would  be 
speedily  made,  but  within  a  year  he  was  sadly  disillu- 
sioned by  the  Fitzwilliam  incident — an  incident  which 
contributed  not  a  little  to  the  spread  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement. 

Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  a  nobleman  by  nature,  broad, 
tolerant  and  in  hearty  sympathy  with  the  Catholics 
in  their  contention  for  equal  rights.  When  in  1794 
he  was  sent  to  Ireland  as  lord  lieutenant  it  was  with 
the  distinct  agreement  that  concessions  were  to  follow. 
This  was  understood  by  Pitt  in  England  and  by  Grat- 
tan and  the  Catholics  in  Ireland.  So  thoroughly  was 
this  understood  that  efforts  were  made  to  have  Grattan 
accept  office  as  chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  The  whole 
arrangement  was  gone  over  at  a  dinner  in  London  at- 
tended by  Pitt,  Grattan,  Fitzwilliam  and  others. 
While  Pitt's  attitude  at  the  dinner  implanted  in  Grat- 
tan a  feeling  of  distrust,  he  still  believed  that  the  Eng- 
lish minister  was  acting  in  good  faith.  When  Fitz- 
william reached  Dublin  he  was  received  with  great 
enthusiasm  and  hailed  as  a  deliverer.  This  was  on 
January  fourth,  1794.  In  reply  to  the  addresses  that 
poured  in  upon  him  from  all  parts  of  the  country  he 


HENRY   GRATTAN  87 

frankly  avowed  that  Catholic  restrictions  would  be 
speedily  removed.  Pitt,  it  should  be  understood,  was 
informed  of  the  nature  of  these  addresses  and  the  re- 
plies. In  his  address  from  the  throne  Lord  Fitz- 
william  reiterated  his  pledge.  In  anticipation  of  the 
fulfilment  of  the  government's  pledge,  Grattan,  early 
in  February,  moved  that  two  hundred  thousand  pounds 
be  granted  for  the  purpose  of  raising  men  for  his 
majesty's  fleet,  and  the  motion  was  agreed  to  without 
a  division.  Nine  days  later  Grattan  obtained  leave  to 
bring  in  a  bill  for  the  relief  of  the  Catholics  and  with 
the  opposition  of  but  three  members.  It  looked  as 
though  a  new  era  had  dawned  for  Ireland. 

Then  startling  rumors  began  to  float  about  Dublin 
to  the  effect  that  Lord  Fitzwilliam  w^as  to  be  recalled. 
The  very  idea  seemed  preposterous.  The  pledge  was 
unmistakable.  The  government  had  been  generously 
voted  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  in  a  spirit  of  grat- 
itude. To  assume  that  Pitt  could  stoop  to  an  act  so 
contemptible  seemed  impossible.  However,  the  house 
took  the  precaution  of  passing  resolutions  thanking 
Fitzwilliam  for  this  conduct,  and  the  entire  house 
marched  to  the  Castle  to  present  them.  In  less  than 
three  months  after  reaching  Dublin,  Fitzwilliam  was 
recalled ! 

A  miserable  pretext  for  the  dismissal  was  found  in 
the  turning  out  of  office  of  two  wretched  incompetents 
who  had  been  runners  for  the  execrable  Clare  and 
slaves  of  the  Castle.  In  the  English  house  of  lords 
Fitzwilliam  declared  that  he  had  been  dismissed  be- 
cause of  his  affiliation  with  Grattan  and  his  party.  The 
former  lord  lieutenant,  in  his  speech  on  that  occasion, 
disclosed  to  the  English  parliament  the  precise  arrange- 


8S  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

ments  under  which  he  had  taken  office,  and  Pitt,  unable 
to  enter  a  denial,  took  recourse  in  a  cowardly  silence. 
In  the  Irish  house,  Grattan  sought  an  early  opportunity 
to  verify  the  story  of  Fitzwilliam,  this  being  done  in 
April,  and  through  the  presentation  of  a  motion  for  a 
committee  on  the  state  of  the  nation  which  declared 
"that  Catholic  emancipation  was  not  only  the  conces- 
sion of  the  British  cabinet,  but  its  precise  arrange- 
ment." The  speech  of  Grattan  in  support  of  his  mo- 
tion was  delivered  with  much  heat  to  an  excited 
audience,  and  the  galleries  broke  into  the  wildest  ap- 
plause in  response  to  the  orator's  denunciation  of  the 
perfidy  of  Pitt;  and  when  in  conclusion  he  defiantly 
declared,  "I  am  here  to  confront  my  enemies  and  stand 
by  my  country,"  the  tumult  in  the  galleries  was  such 
that  the  speaker  was  forced  to  clear  the  house  of  all 
but  members  to  restore  the  slightest  semblance  of 
order.  This  infamous  trick  of  Pitt's  had  a  remarkable 
effect  upon  the  people.  Dublin  went  into  mourning 
.when  Fitzwilliam  left.  The  revolutionary  element 
was  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  the  disgusted.  And 
Henry  Grattan  was  forced  to  the  reluctant  realization 
that  his  fight  now  would  have  to  be  for  nothing  less 
than  the  preservation  of  the  parliament  to  which  he 
had  given  its  independence. 

VI 

The  fight  for  the  preservation  of  parliamentary  in- 
dependence was  forced  by  the  corrupt  methods  of 
Buckingham  and  the  open  avowal  of  his  successor, 
Lord  Westmoreland,  that  he  proposed  to  govern  after 
the  fashion  of  his  predecessor.    From  the  moment  of 


HENRY    GRATTAN  89 

that  avowal  Grattan  enlisted  for  the  war,  and  during 
the  next  seven  years  we  find  him  exposing  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  government  and  the  tendency  of  its  policy 
at  every  opportunity.  It  can  not  be  said  that  Ireland 
drifted  into  the  union  without  warning.  Every  step 
in  that  direction  was  heralded  by  the  lips  of  the  father 
of  parliamentary  independence.  We  shall  find,  how- 
ever, that  the  pubHc  opinion  of  Ireland  was  not  to  be 
considered  in  the  transaction  to  which  Pitt  was  looking 
forward,  and  that  all  arrangements  were  to  be  made 
between  the  minister  and  the  members  he  should  buy. 
As  early  as  January,  1790,  we  find  Grattan  sounding 
the  note  of  warning  in  a  speech  following  that  of  the 
lord  lieutenant,  who  had  announced  in  the  address 
from  the  throne  that  the  policies  of  Buckingham 
would  be  adopted  by  his  administration.  In  explain- 
ing his  inability  to  assent  to  that  portion  of  the  address, 
Grattan  gave  the  house  a  bill  of  particulars  relative  to 
the  happenings  of  the  Buckingham  regime. 

"This  was  the  man.  You  remember  his  entry  into 
the  capital;  trampling  on  the  hearse  of  the  Duke  of 
Rutland,  and  seated  in  a  triumphal  car,  drawn  by  pub- 
lic credulity;  on  one  side  fallacious  hope,  and  on  the 
other  many-mouthed  profession ;  a  figure  with  two 
faces,  one  turned  to  the  treasury,  and  the  other  pre- 
sented to  the  people;  and  with  a  double  tongue  speak- 
ing contradictory  languages. 

''The  minister  alights ;  justice  looked  up  to  him  with 
empty  hopes,  and  peculation  faints  Avith  idle  alarms: 
he  finds  the  city  a  prey  to  an  unconstitutional  police — 
he  continues  it ;  he  finds  the  country  overburdened  with 
a  shameful  pension  list — he  increases  it;  he  finds  the 
house  of  commons  swarming  with  placemen — he  mul- 
tiplies them ;  he  finds  the  salary  of  the  secretary  in- 
creased to  prevent  a  pension — he  grants  a  pension;  he 


90  JHE    IRISH    ORATORS 

finds  the  kingdom  drained  by  absentee  employments  and 
by  compensations  to  buy  them  home — ^he  gives  the  best 
reversion  in  the  country  to  an  absentee,  his  brother. 
He  finds  the  government,  at  different  times,  had  dis- 
graced itself  by  creating  sinecures  to  gratify  corrupt 
affection — he  makes  two  commissioners  of  the  rolls  and 
gives  one  of  them  to  another  brother;  he  finds  the  sec- 
ond council  to  the  commissioners  put  down  because  use- 
less— ^he  revives  it;  he  finds  the  boards  of  accounts  and 
stamps  annexed  by  public  compact — he  divides  them; 
he  finds  three  resolutions  declaring  that  seven  commis- 
sioners are  sufficient — he  makes  nine ;  he  finds  the  coun- 
try has  suffered  by  some  peculations  in  the  ordnance — 
he  increases  the  salary  of  officers,  and  gives  the  places 
to  members — members  of  parliament." 

Immediately  after  the  Westmoreland  administration 
went  in,  a  significant  rearrangement  of  the  galleries 
of  the  house  of  commons  was  made,  reducing  the  space 
for  spectators  by  half.  To  do  this  it  was  necessary  to 
destroy  the  symm.etry  of  the  interior,  and  for  this  no 
explanation  was  forthcoming.  The  matter  however 
was  called  to  the  attention  of  the  house  by  Grattan, 
who  grasped  the  ominous  significance  of  the  proceed- 
ing, calculated  to  minimize  the  embarrassment  of  mer- 
cenaries gazed  down  upon  by  honest  men.  The  very 
month  of  Westmoreland's  arrival  we  find  Grattan 
forcing  the  fighting  by  offering  resolutions  against 
increasing  the  number  of  the  commissioners  of  the 
revenue  and  dividing  the  board  and  providing  that 
these  resolutions  be  laid  before  the  king  with  the  re- 
quest that  he  communicate  the  names  of  the  persons 
who  recommended  the  increase  and  the  division.  His 
speech  in  offering  the  resolutions  was  a  frank  reflec- 
tion upon  the  honesty  of  government.  His  first  sen- 
tence was  a  thunderbolt 


HENRY   GRATTAN  91 

"We  combat  a  project  to  govern  this  country  by  cor- 
ruption," he  began.  "It  is  not  Hke  the  supremacy  of 
the  British  parliament — a  thunderbolt ;  nor  like  the 
twenty  propositions,  a  mine  of  artifice ;  but  without  the 
force  of  the  one  or  the  fraud  of  the  other,  will  answer 
all  the  purposes  of  both." 

And  again : 

"They  began  with  a  contempt  of  popularity,  they  pro- 
ceeded to  a  contempt  of  fame,  and  they  now  vibrate  on 
the  last  string,  a  contempt  of  virtue." 

And  again : 

"I  will  not  say  that  ministers  went  into  the  open 
streets  with  cockades  in  their  hats  and  drums  in  their 
hands;  but  I  do  say  they  were  as  public,  and  had  as 
openly  broken  terms  with  decorum,  as  if  they  had  so 
paraded  in  college-green,  w^ith  their  business  lettered 
on  their  foreheads." 

And  further  on  he  says : 

"I  have  shown  this  measure  to  be  a  disregard  to  the 
sense  of  this  house,  for  the  purpose  of  extending  in- 
fluence ;  this  leads  me  from  the  particular  subject  to  the 
general  policy.  The  nature  of  this  policy  I  have  de- 
scribed ;  the  ultimate  consequences  I  shall  not  now  de- 
tail, but  I  will  mention  one  which  seems  to  include  all. 
I  know  you  say — union ;  no,  it  is  not  the  extinction  of 
the  Irish  parliament,  but  its  disgraceful  continuation. 
Parliament  under  such  a  project  will  live,  but  live  to 
no  one  useful  purpose.  The  minister  will  defeat  her  at- 
tempts by  corruption,  and  deter  the  repetition  of  her 
attempts  by  threatening  the  repetition  of  the  expenses 
of  corruption.  Having  been  long  the  bawd,  corruption 
will  become  the  sage  and  honest  admonitress  of  the  na- 


92  THE    IRISH    ORATORS  ,  ' 

tion.  She  will  advise  her  no  more  to  provoke  the  min- 
ister to  rob  the  subject;  she  will  advise  her  to  serve  in 
order  to  save;  to  be  a  slave  on  the  principle  of  good 
housewifery;  then  will  parliament,  instead  of  control- 
ling the  court,  administer  to  its  licentiousness;  provide 
villas  and  furniture  for  the  servants  of  the  Castle,  afford 
a  place  army  to  obnoxious  members,  accommodate  with 
cruel  and  contradictory  clauses  the  commissioners  of  the 
revenue,  or  feed  on  public  rapine  the  viceroy's  clanship. 
Parliament,  that  giant  that  purged  these  islands  of  a 
race  of  tyrants  whose  breed  it  was  the  misfortune  of 
England  to  preserve  and  of  Ireland  to  adopt;  parlia- 
ment, whose  head  has  for  ages  commerced  with  the  wis- 
dom of  the  gods  and  whose  foot  has  spoken  thunder 
and  deposition  to  the  oppressor,  will,  like  the  sacred 
giant,  stand  a  public  spectacle  shorn  of  its  strength,  or 
rather,  like  that  giant,  he  will  retain  his  strength  for 
the  amusement  of  his  enemies,  and  do  feats  of  ignomin- 
ious power  to  gratify  an  idle  and  hostile  court ;  and  these 
walls,  where  once  the  public  weal  contended,  and  the 
patriot  strove,  will  resemble  the  ruin  of  some  Italian 
temple,  and  abound,  not  with  senators,  but  with  animals 
of  prey  in  the  guise  of  senators,  chattering  their  pert 
debates,  and  disgracing  those  seats  which  once  belonged 
to  the  people." 

It  was  inevitable  that  charges  so  serious  should  give 
grave  umbrage  to  the  government  and  its  hired  men, 
and  during  the  course  of  the  discussion,  it  was  sug- 
gested, by  way  of  intimidation,  that  either  Grattan  had 
made  false  charges  or  the  minister  was  corrupt,  and 
that  one  or  the  other  should  be  punished.  This  in- 
stantly brought  Grattan  to  his  feet  with  a  hearty 
assent. 

"Bring  against  us  your  proofs  of  our  sedition,"  he 
exclaimed,  "and  I  will  bring  against  you  my  proofs  of 
your  corruption;  proofs  of  attempts  to  intimidate  mem- 


HENRY    GRATTAN  93 

bers  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties ;  proof  of  your  tam- 
pering with  members,  and  proofs  of  your  sale  of  hon- 
ors." 

The  attempt  of  some  of  the  Castle  hirelings  to  jus- 
tify the  course  of  the  government  called  forth  one  of 
the  most  furious  retorts  to  be  found  in  any  of  Grattan's 
speeches : 

"Sir,  that  corruption  should  be  practised  by  ministers 
is  a  common  case ;  that  it  should  be  carried  under  the 
present  administration  to  that  most  extraordinary  and 
alarming  excess  is  the  peculiar  misfortune  of  the  coun- 
try, and  the  peculiar  disgrace  of  her  government,  in  their 
present  venal  hands.  But  that  this  should  be  justified — 
that  it  should  be  justified  in  parliament — corruption  ex- 
pressly justified  in  parliament.  Sir,  the  woman  who 
keeps  her  secret  is  received,  but  she  who  boasts  her 
shame  is  the  outcast  of  society;  in  these  cases  the  ear 
corrupts  the  mind,  and  the  sound  haunts  the  soul  with 
the  warm  image  of  pollution.  That  corruption  should 
be  the  conversation  of  your  cabinet,  the  topic  of  your 
closet,  the  soul  and  spirit  of  your  table  talk,  I  can  well 
conceive ;  but  to  introduce  here  your  abominable  rites,  to 
bring  Mammon  out  of  your  closet  and  fall  down  and 
worship  him  in  the  high  court  of  parliament — Sir,  how- 
far  must  the  ministry  have  gone  when  even  here  it  bursts 
out  its  horrid  suggestion !" 

The  utter  shamelessness  of  the  government,  which 
had  the  hearty  sympathy  of  Pitt,  was  manifested  on 
this  occasion  by  the  defeat  of  the  resolutions  and  the 
refusal  of  the  government  to  proceed  against  Grattan 
because  of  the  open  charges  he  had  made. 

Undaunted  by  this  defeat,  and  determined  that  the 
people  should  thoroughly  understand  the  situation, 
Grattan  returned  to  the  attack  in  less  than  three  weeks 


94  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

with  a  motion  for  the  appointment  of  a  select  commit- 
tee to  inquire  into  the  sale  of  peerages  and  the  use  of 
the  money  thus  attained  in  the  purchase  of  government 
seats  in  the  commons.  In  his  speech,  in  support  of 
the  motion,  he  again  threw  a  bomb  into  the  Castle  camp 
with  his  first  sentence — an  impressive  reiteration : 

"Sir,  we  continue  to  combat  the  project  to  govern  this 
country  by  corruption." 

In  concluding  his  remarks  Grattan  made  his  charges 
so  specific  that  no  government,  unless  wholly  and 
hopelessly  depraved — and  it  was  the  government  of 
William  Pitt — would  have  failed  to  accept  the  chal- 
lenge and  have  agreed  to  the  inquiry : 

"We  charge  them  publicly,  and  in  the  face  of  their 
country,  with  making  corrupt  agreements  for  the  sale  of 
peerages ;  for  doing  which  we  say  they  are  impeachable. 
We  charge  them  with  corrupt  agreements  for  the  disposal 
of  the  money  arising  from  the  sale,  to  purchase  for  the 
servants  of  the  Castle  seats  in  the  assembly  of  the  peo- 
ple; for  doing  which  we  say  they  are  impeachable.  We 
charge  them  with  committing  these  offenses  not  in  one, 
nor  in  two,  but  in  many  instances ;  for  which  complica- 
tion of  offenses  we  say  they  are  impeachable;  guilty  of 
a  systematic  endeavor  to  undermine  the  constitution  in 
violation  of  the  laws  of  the  land.  We  pledge  ourselves 
to  convict  them;  we  dare  them  to  go  into  an  inquiry; 
we  do  not  affect  to  treat  them  other  than  as  public  male- 
factors ;  we  speak  to  them  in  a  style  of  the  most  morti- 
fying and  humiliating  defiance.  We  pronounce  them  to 
be  public  criminals.  Will  they  dare  to  deny  the  charge? 
I  call  upon,  and  dare  the  ostensible  member  to  rise  in 
his  place  and  say  on  his  honor  that  he  does  not  believe 
such  corrupt  agreements  have  taken  place.  I  wait  for  a 
specific  answer." 

The  only  specific  answer  made  by  government  to 


HENRY    GRATTAN  95 

these  specific  charges  was  the  defeat  of  the  motion  for 
an  inquiry  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  forty- four  to 
eighty-eight.  Four  days  later,  in  speaking  on  another 
subject,  and  referring  to  the  flagrant  corruption  of  the 
government,  Grattan  quoted  a  member  as  having  said 
that  in  the  former  speech  he  should  have  been  stopped ; 
and  then  deliberately  he  reiterated  the  charges  as  given 
in  the  extract  just  quoted,  and  concluded : 

"I  repeat  these  charges  now;  and  if  anything  more 
severe  was  on  the  former  occasion  expressed,  I  beg  to 
be  reminded  of  it,  and  I  will  again  repeat  it.  Why  do 
not  you  expel  me  now?  Why  not  send  me  to  the  bar 
of  the  lords?  W^here  is  your  adviser?  Going  out  of  this 
house  I  shall  repeat  my  sentiments,  that  his  majesty's 
ministers  are  guilty  of  impeachable  offenses ;  and,  ad- 
vancing to  the  bar  of  the  lords,  I  shall  repeat  those  senti- 
ments; or,  if  the  Tower  is  to  be  my  habitation,  I  will 
there  meditate  the  impeachment  of  these  ministers,  and 
return,  not  to  capitulate,  but  to  punish." 

Little  wonder  that  the  Frouds  and  Fishers,  the  his- 
torical defenders  of  the  crime  of  the  union,  have  not 
the  hardihood  to  deny  that  the  act  was  committed 
through  the  most  disgraceful  governmental  corruption, 
with  records  such  as  have  been  handed  down  in  the 
speeches  of  Grattan  to  confront  and  convict  tliem.  On 
every  possible  opportunity  Grattan  returned  to  the 
charge  in  an  effort  to  discover  some  slight  sensibility 
in  the  ministers  that  might  impel  them  to  challenge 
proof — but  they  preferred  the  charges  to  the  proof. 
In  1793  we  find  him  making  three  separate  efforts  to 
secure  parliamentary  reform,  and  in  every  instance  re- 
iterating his  direct  charges  against  the  honesty  of  the 
ministry. 


96  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

"I  say  the  reform  of  parliament  is  made  irresistible 
by  the  minister's  offenses,"  he  said.  *'Have  we  forgotten 
how  the  present  ministry  came  into  power  ?  They  were 
made  the  ministers  of  the  present  lord  lieutenant  because 
they  had  been  the  panders  of  the  predecessors.  Have 
we  forgotten  how  they  went  about  administering  to  every 
venal  person  the  wages  of  corruption?  Have  we  forgot- 
ten how,  in  one  stroke,  they  created  fifteen  new  parlia- 
mentary provisions,  declared  in  this  house  by  their  friends 
to  have  been  made  for  no  other  purpose  than  that  of 
buying  the  members  ?  And  do  such  men  talk  of  the  dig- 
nity of  parliament?  Have  we  forgotten  that  other  act 
of  theirs — that  misdemeanor  for  which  they  are  impeach- 
able, and  of  which  they  are  so  notoriously  guilty — ^that 
charged,  arraigned,  put  down  publicly  and  repeatedly, 
they  have  not  dared  to  deny  it  ?  I  mean  the  sale  of  peer- 
ages for  sums  of  money  conditioned  to  be  expended  for 
the  procuring  of  seats  in  this  house  for  persons  named 
by  the  minister;  and  do  these  men  talk  of  character?" 

The  failure  of  the  attempt  at  parliamentary  reform 
sealed  the  fate  of  the  parliament.  In  1793,  when 
Grattan  made  his  fight  for  reform,  there  were  three 
hundred  members,  of  whom  two  hundred  were  selected 
by  one  hundred  individuals,  and  at  least  fifty  were 
chosen  by  ten  individuals.  When,  in  addition  to  this 
tragic  condition,  the  infamous  policy  of  the  ministry 
in  selling  peerages  to  buy  seats  for  governmental  pur- 
poses is  taken  into  consideration,  it  is  not  at  all  surpris- 
ing that  the  ultimate  result  was  union. 

Meanwhile  the  country  was  torn  with  the  most  bitter 
religious  dissensions,  the  outrages  of  the  Orangemen 
augmenting  the  growing  army  of  the  United  Irishmen, 
the  militant  remnant  of  the  Volunteers  who  had  de- 
spaired of  the  liberty  of  Ireland  under  British  rule, 


HENRY   GRATTAN  97 

secretly  preparing  to  revolt.  When  parliament  met  in 
1796  a  subservient  house  was  quite  ready  to  support 
the  government  in  the  most  violent  measures  of  re- 
pression it  might  see  fit  to  put  forth.  An  insurrection 
bill  was  passed  which  imprisoned  the  peasantry  in  their 
houses  from  sunset  to  sunrise.  This  was  supplemented 
by  an  indemnity  bill  which  absolved  magistrates  from 
all  their  illegal  acts.  This  made  the  magistrates  abso- 
lute dictators  and  deprived  the  citizen  of  the  least  sem- 
blance of  liberty  or  legal  rights.  These  measures,  born 
of  the  brain  of  the  brutal  Clare,  were  described  by  Cur- 
ran  as  a  "bloody  code."  During  the  course  of  the  year 
Grattan  spoke  in  favor  of  strengthening  the  country 
and  securing  unanimity  by  granting  to  all  subjects  the 
blessings  of  the  constitution  regardless  of  religion,  but 
he  was  overwhelmingly  voted  down;  and  four  days 
later  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  suspended.  In  pro- 
testing against  this  act  of  despotism  Grattan  said : 

"As  to  your  political  liberty,  the  influence  of  the  crown 
seems  to  have  corrected  that  blessing;  as  to  your  civil 
liberty,  this  bill,  added  to  the  bills  you  passed  last  ses- 
sion, seems  to  correct  that  blessing  also.  By  the  Influence 
of  the  crown  the  minister  becomes  the  master  of  your 
legislation,  and,  by  those  bills,  he  becomes  master  of  your 
persons.  Now,  after  this,  where  are  the  blessings  of  your 
constitution?  You  have  deprived  the  subject  of  political 
liberty,  and  you  now  deprive  him  of  civil  liberty,  lest  he 
should  exercise  that  liberty  to  reform  abuses ;  lest  he 
should  use  that  liberty  he  has  left  to  recover  the  liberty 
he  has  lost.  I  protest  against  the  system;  It  Is  abomi- 
nable ;  you  feel  it  to  be  so,  and  take  these  measures  of 
power  because  you  know  the  people  can  not  be  reconciled 
to  it  but  by  power ;  because  you  feel  you  have  lost  the 
confidence  of  the  great  body  of  the  people." 


98  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

This  speech  was  considered  seditious  by  the  govern- 
ment and  has  greatly  shocked  some  of  the  fastidious 
English  historians  who  have  found  nothing  but  the 
admirable  in  the  perfidy  of  Pitt,  the  savagery  of  Clare, 
or  the  corruption  of  Castlereagh.  The  conditions  be- 
came worse  and  worse.  There  was  no  longer  any  legal 
right  that  government  felt  bound  to  respect.  Liberty 
had  been  destroyed  and  a  despotism  established.  The 
prisons  were  full  to  overflowing.  Soldiers  were  being 
poured  into  the  island.  Not  content  with  all  that  had 
been  done.  General  Lake,  commanding  the  northern 
district  of  Ireland,  assuming  the  airs  of  a  dictator, 
issued  an  amazing  proclamation  calling  upon  the  peo- 
ple to  surrender  all  arms  in  their  possession  to  the 
English  soldiers.  Against  this  outrage  Grattan  pro- 
tested with  all  the  vehemence  of  his  nature. 

"I  ask  you  now,  will  you  submit  to  such  an  act?'*  he 
demanded.  "Will  you  sit  by  with  folded  arms  and  suf- 
fer the  deputy  of  an  English  minister  to  disarm  the  Irish? 
Will  you  suffer  him  to  enslave  your  country?  Will  you 
suffer  him  to  disgrace  her?  Will  you  surrender  to  him 
her  character,  her  constitution,  her  arms,  and,  in  that 
word,  everything  dear  to  Irishmen  ?" 

But  the  eloquence  of  a  Grattan  could  accomplish 
nothing  as  against  the  gold  of  the  ministry,  and  thus 
the  infamies  practised  by  the  government  continued  to 
recruit  the  army  of  the  United  Irishmen. 

It  should  be  said  that  Grattan  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  purposes  of  this  organization,  and  that  he  and 
his  friends,  although  approached  with  the  proposition 
that  they  cast  their  lot  with  the  revolutionary  organ- 
ization, refused  to  countenance  it  in  any  way.    At  the 


HENRY   GRATTAN  99 

same  time  he,  better  perhaps  than  most,  realized  that 
the  poHcy  of  the  minister  was  making  the  revolu- 
tionary sentiment  more  formidable  than  it  had  ever 
before  been  in  a  generation.  At  this  juncture  Grattan 
found  himself  in  a  quandary.  He  could  not  refrain 
from  lifting  up  his  voice  in  the  exposure  of  Irish 
wrongs  and  in  the  demand  for  the  righting  of  these 
wrongs.  And  yet  he  knew  that  his  powerful  philippics 
against  the  government  could  not  but  have  their  effect 
upon  the  masses  of  the  people,  thereby  driving  the 
more  impulsive  into  the  revolutionary  ranks.  He  drew 
back  in  horror  from  the  contemplation  of  the  bloody 
uprising  that  he  foresaw.  And  yet  to  join  in  measures 
for  the  suppression  of  rebellion  would  be  tantamount 
to  locking  arms  with  the  ministers  he  despised  as  ene- 
mies to  the  constitution  of  his  country.  The  preceding 
seven  years  had  made  it  all  too  plain  that  he  could 
accomplish  nothing  more,  at  least  at  the  time,  by  con- 
tinuing his  fight.  His  following  had  sunk  to  an  insig- 
nificant number.  This  situation  led  to  the  determina- 
tion of  himself  and  friends  to  secede  from  parliament. 
The  announcement  was  reserved  for  the  conclusion  of 
a  final  fight  in  favor  of  parliamentary  reform. 

Thus  on  May  fifteenth,  1797,  Henry  Grattan  passed 
from  the  parliament  to  which  he  had  given  its  inde- 
pendence, only  to  return,  a  sadly  broken  man,  to  wit- 
ness its  utter  destruction.  It  has  sometimes  been  said 
that  he  failed  to  exert  himself  as  he  should  to  stem  the 
tide  of  corruption  which  was  to  overwhelm  his  coun- 
try. The  record  of  his  seven  years'  fight  and  the 
citations  from  his  speeches  surely  exonerate  him  from 
the  charge  of  apathy  or  indifference,  and  establish 


ICO  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

beyond  all  doubt  that  he  did  all  within  the  power  of 
mortal  to  save  his  country. 

VII 

Worn  by  worry  and  disease,  Grattan,  upon  his  se- 
cession from  parliament,  resigned  from  the  yeomanry 
corps,  and  went  to  Castle  Connel,  a  watering  place  in 
the  county  of  Limerick,  on  the  borders  of  the  Shan- 
non. After  a  brief  sojourn  there  he  retired  to  his 
country  place,  Tinnehinch,  in  the  hope  that  his  jaded 
nerves  might  recover  in  the  tranquil  surroundings. 
Alas,  all  tranquillity  had  departed  from  Ireland.  The 
country  was  now  in  the  throes  of  rebellion  and  no  man 
was  safe  from  the  spies  and  informers  of  the  Castle, 
least  of  all  the  great  orator  whom  they  had  been  un- 
able either  to  bribe  or  buy.  Grattan  appears  to  have 
appreciated  the  delicacy  of  his  position  and  to  have 
been  on  the  lookout  for  traps  that  might  be  set  for  him. 
One  of  the  wretched  informers  of  the  period  actually 
called  upon  him  at  Tinnehinch  in  an  effort  to  trap  him 
into  joining  the  United  Irishmen.  During  his  absence 
in  England  the  ruffians  that  swarmed  over  the  country 
terrorized  Mrs.  Grattan,  who  remained  alone  with  the 
servants  at  Tinnehinch.  She  was  threatened  with  vio- 
lence, attempts  were  made  to  trap  her  into  saying 
something  that  might  be  used  against  her  husband,  and 
in  the  night  the  steps  of  prowlers  were  often  heard 
around  the  house.  On  the  return  of  Grattan  the  spies, 
informers  and  gunmen  of  authority  were  again  set 
upon  him,  and  during  these  trying  times  he  took  the 
precaution  to  have  arms  in  reach  at  all  hours  for  the 
protection  of  his  life. 


HENRY    GRATTAN  101 

Beset  with  every  danger,  his  Hfe  threatened,  his 
reputation  assailed,  his  country  despoiled  of  her  liber- 
ties, and  his  parliament  doomed  already  to  destruction, 
the  health  of  Grattan  broke  down  completely.  His 
condition  became  such  that  he  was  forbidden  to  talk 
politics,  to  read  or  write,  and  owing  to  his  nervous 
malady  every  effort  was  made  to  keep  the  developments 
in  Dublin  from  him.  He  went  to  England  and  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  but  without  improvement. 

Thus  near  the  close  of  1799  he  returned  to  Tinne- 
hinch,  a  feeble,  prematurely  old  man.  Hardly  had  he 
reached  his  home  when  deputations  of  his  friends  be- 
gan to  pour  in  upon  him  with  importunities  that  he  re- 
enter parliament  and  do  all  he  could  to  prevent  the 
consummation  of  the  union  which  was  then  under  dis- 
cussion in  Dublin.  Anxious  though  he  was  to  defend 
the  life  of  his  parliament,  he  was  impelled  by  the  des- 
perate state  of  his  health  to  give  a  refusal.  A  little 
later,  however,  a  vacancy  was  created  by  death  in  the 
representation  of  Wicklow,  and  the  importunities  of 
his  friends  being  renewed,  and  Mrs.  Grattan  joining  in 
the  effort  to  persuade  him  as  an  imperative  duty  to  his 
country,  he  gave  a  reluctant  consent.  He  was  taken  to 
Dublin  as  an  invalid,  and  unable  to  bear  even  the  noise 
of  a  hotel,  a  place  was  found  for  him  in  a  private 
house,  where  he  retired  to  await  the  election.  His 
friends  were  especially  anxious  for  him  to  be  present 
at  the  opening  of  parliament  when  a  stormy  and  bitter 
debate  on  the  project  of  the  union  was  expected,  and 
special  permission  was  given  for  holding  the  election 
after  midnight  on  the  day  of  the  opening. 

That  night  the  debate  began  in  all  its  fury,  the  bril- 
liant Plunkett  leading  the  national  party — and  Grattan 


102  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

was  not  there.  The  moment  however  that  the  return 
on  the  election  was  signed,  a  man  was  despatched  on 
horseback  for  Dubhn.  It  was  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing when  he  knocked  loudly  on  the  door  of  Grattan's 
lodging.  The  orator  had  been  ill  all  night.  "Oh,  they 
have  come,"  he  exclaimed,  "why  will  they  not  let  me 
die  in  peace?"  Mrs.  Grattan  insisted  that  he  go  im- 
mediately to  the  house  of  commons.  His  attendants 
dressed  him  as  they  would  have  dressed  a  child,  and 
helped  him  down  the  stairs.  He  went  to  the  parlor 
and  loaded  his  pistols,  as  he  had  reasons  to  fear  as- 
sassination. They  wrapped  a  blanket  about  him,  put 
him  in  a  sedan  chair,  and  Mrs.  Grattan  watched  his 
departure  with  the  feeling  that  she  might  never  see 
him  again.  She  was  reassured  somewhat  by  the  news 
that  Grattan's  friends  had  agreed  to  come  forward 
in  the  event  of  a  quarrel  and  take  his  place.  "My 
husband  can  not  die  better  than  in  defense  of  his 
country,"  she  replied  proudly. 

It  was  now  seven  o'clock  and  the  debate  had  been 
in  progress  all  night,  Plunkett  had  delivered  his  mar- 
velous speech  of  protest,  and  Eagan  had  risen  to 
speak,  when  suddenly,  the  doors  flew  open,  and  there 
on  the  threshold  stood  Grattan,  thin,  weak,  emaciated, 
supported  by  two  friends.  As  he  started  slowly  down 
the  aisle  to  be  sworn,  the  entire  house,  including  Cas- 
tlereagh,  rose  instinctively  as  a  token  of  respect.  A 
dramatic  figure  he  made,  dressed  in  the  Volunteer  uni- 
form, blue  with  red  cuffs  and  collars,  and  with  a 
cocked  hat  on  his  head.  As  his  friends  gathered  about 
him,  one  of  them,  noticing  his  hat  upon  his  head,  re- 
minded him  of  the  rules.  "Do  not  mind  me,  I  know 
what  to  do,"  he  replied  petulantly.    He  looked  about 


HENRY    GRATTAN  103 

defiantly  as  he  proceeded  down  the  aisle  and  did  not 
remove  his  hat  until  he  had  almost  reached  the  table. 
After  taking  the  oath,  he  sat  down  beside  Plunkett, 
and  Eagan  resumed  his  interrupted  speech. 

The  physical  condition  of  Grattan  at  this  time  and 
for  months  before  has  been  given  in  some  detail  for 
the  purpose  of  emphasizing  the  utter  unreliability  of 
the  pro-British  writers  of  history  in  dealing  with 
Irish  subjects.  Within  the  last  three  years  Mr.  J.  R. 
Fisher  has  written  a  volume  on  The  End  of  the  Irish 
Parliament  J  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made 
in  the  study  of  Flood,  in  which  every  patriot  is  de- 
rided and  such  characters  as  Castlereagh  and  Lord 
Clare  and  Pitt  are  whitewashed  after  the  approved 
Tory  fashion.  Mr.  Fisher  must  have  known  some- 
thing of  the  physical  condition  of  Grattan  on  the 
dreary  morning  that  he  returned  to  parliament,  and 
he  could  easily  have  satisfied  himself  by  turning  to  the 
correspondence  of  Mrs.  Grattan  and  ascertaining.  And 
yet  treating  of  the  dramatic  entrance  of  Grattan,  he 
ascribes  his  feeble  manner  to  an  affected  imitation  of 
Chatham. 

At  length  Eagan  concluded,  and  Grattan,  obtaining 
permission  to  speak  while  seated,  began  his  reply  to 
Pitt: 

"The  gentleman  who  spoke  last  but  one  has  spoken  the 
pamphlet  of  the  English  minister — I  answer  that  min- 
ister. He  has  published  two  celebrated  productions,  in 
both  of  which  he  proclaims  his  intolerance  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  Ireland.  He  concurs  with  the  men  whom  he  has 
hanged  in  thinking  the  constitution  a  grievance,  and  dif- 
fers from  them  in  the  remedy  only;  they  proposing  to 
substitute  a  republic  and  he  proposing  to  substitute  the 


104  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

yoke  of  the  British  parliament;  the  one  turns  rebel  to 
the  king,  the  minister  a  rebel  to  the  constitution." 

Proceeding  then  in  an  argumentative  manner,  in 
contrast  to  the  impassioned  style  employed  a  little  be- 
fore by  Plunkett,  he  took  up  one  by  one  the  arguments 
of  the  minister,  insisting  that  the  settlement  of  1782 
was  considered  final  by  both  countries,  defending  the 
position  of  the  Irish  parliament  in  the  regency  contro- 
versy as  justifiable  and  proper,  and  answering  the  ob- 
jection that  a  separate  parliament  would  cripple  the 
empire  in  the  event  of  war,  by  declaring  the  policy  pro- 
posed by  the  minister  more  conducive  to  disloyalty. 

"I  wljl  put  this  question  to  my  country,"  he  said.  "I 
will  suppose  her  at  the  bar,  and  I  will  ask  her,  will  you 
fight  for  a  union  as  you  would  for  a  constitution  ?  Will 
you  fight  for  that  lords,  and  that  commons,  who  in  the 
last  century  took  away  your  trade,  and  in  the  present, 
your  constitution,  as  for  that  king,  lords  and  commons 
who  have  restored  them?  Well,  the  minister  has  de- 
stroyed this  constitution ;  to  destroy  is  easy ;  the  edifices 
of  the  mind,  like  the  fabrics  of  marble,  require  an  age  to 
build  but  ask  only  minutes  to  precipitate ;  and,  as  the  fall 
of  both  is  the  effort  of  no  time,  so  neither  is  it  a  business 
of  any  strength ;  a  pick-ax  and  a  common  laborer  will 
do  the  one — a  little  lawyer,  a  little  pimp,  a  wicked  min- 
ister, the  other." 

He  then  took  up  the  objections  to  the  union,  show- 
ing that  it  was  not  union,  no  identification  of  peoples, 
because  of  the  exclusion  of  the  Catholics,  that  It 
merely  meant  "an  extinction  of  the  constitution  and 
an  exclusion  of  the  people."  He  followed  this  by  argu- 
ing the  Insincerity  of  the  British  promises  regarding 
Catholic  emancipation,  the  abolition  of  tithes,  and  Hb- 


HENRY   GRATTAN  105 

erality  toward  Irish  commerce — all  of  which  he  dubbed 
as  bribes — by  showing  the  antagonism  of  the  govern- 
ment to  these  very  measures  during  the  preceding 
decade. 

"Against  such  a  proposition,"  he  exclaimed  in  conclu- 
sion, "were  I  expiring  on  the  floor,  I  would  beg  to  utter 
my  last  breath,  and  record  my  dying  testimony." 

A  few  days  later  the  message  of  the  lord  lieutenant, 
Cornwallis,  recommending  a  union,  was  read  and  an- 
other acrimonious  debate  resulted,  lasting  all  night 
and  until  noon  the  next  day.  On  this  occasion  Grattan 
again  assailed  the  proposition  with  a  great  argument, 
free  from  invective,  but  invincible  in  its  reasoning. 

"The  question  is  not  such  as  occupied  you  of  old,"  he 
said  in  conclusion.  "Old  Poyning's  law,  not  peculation, 
not  plunder,  not  an  embargo,  not  a  Catholic  bill,  not  a 
reform  bill — it  is  your  being — it  is  more — it  is  your  life 
to  come,  whether  you  will  go  with  the  Castle  at  your  head 
to  the  tomb  of  Charlemont  and  the  Volunteers,  and  erase 
his  epitaph;  or  whether  your  children  shall  go  to  your 
graves,  saying  a  venal,  a  military  court,  attacked  the  lib- 
erties of  the  Irish,  and  here  lie  the  bones  of  the  honorable 
dead  men  who  saved  their  country.  Such  an  epitaph  is 
a  nobility  which  the  king  can  not  give  his  slaves ;  it  is  a 
glory  which  the  crown  can  not  give  the  king." 

In  a  little  less  than  two  weeks  after  this  debate  the 
articles  of  union  were  presented,  and  Isaac  Corry  was 
selected  by  the  government  to  defend  them.  This  man 
had  commenced  his  public  career  as  a  patriot  and  had 
frequently  been  a  guest  of  Grattan  at  Tinnehinch; 
had  written  complimentary  verse  to  his  idol ;  and  then 
had  turned  traitor  under  the  influence  of  the  Castle. 
In  the  course  of  his  speech  he  went  out  of  his  way  to 


106  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

attack  his  former  leader  with  great  bitterness,  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  instructed 
to  do  so  by  the  Castle  party.  Grattan  entered  the 
house  while  Corry  was  in  the  midst  of  a  vehement  de- 
nunciation, and  as  he  took  his  seat,  he  turned  to  his 
neighbor  with  the  remark,  "I  see  they  vv^ish  to  make 
an  attack  upon  my  life,  and  the  sooner  the  better." 
The  moment  Corry  resumed  his  seat  Grattan  was  up 
and  at  him  like  a  lion. 

"Has  the  gentleman  done?"  he  exclaimed.  "Has  he 
completely  done?  He  was  unparliamentary  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  of  his  speech.  There  was  scarce  a 
word  he  uttered  that  was  not  a  violation  of  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  house ;  but  I  did  not  call  him  to  order — why? 
Because  the  limited  talents  of  some  men  render  it  im- 
possible for  them  to  be  severe  without  being  unparlia- 
mentary. But  before  I  sit  down  I  shall  show  him  how  to 
be  severe  and  parliamentary  at  the  same  time.  On  any 
other  occasion  I  should  consider  myself  justinable  in 
treating  with  silent  contempt  anything  which  might  fall 
from  that  honorable  member;  but  there  are  times  when 
the  insignificance  of  the  accuser  is  lost  in  the  magnitude 
of  the  accusation." 

Then  followed  one  of  the  most  terrific  arraignments 
ever  heard  by  any  parliamentary  body,  more  crushing 
than  the  philippic  against  Flood — so  overwhelming 
that  it  fairly  thrilled  an  unwilling  house  which  sat  as 
though  stupefied  while  the  great  orator  lashed  not 
only  the  insignificant  Corry,  but  the  flagrant  corruption 
of  the  government.  Even  Castlereagh  sat  like  one 
electrified,  lost  in  admiring  wonder.  The  moment  he 
concluded  Grattan  left  the  house,  and  in  passing  Plun- 
kett,  who  was  watching  him  anxiously  because  of  his 


HENRY    GR.\TTAN  107 

physical  condition,  gave  him  a  reassuring  clasp  of  the 
hand  which  led  Plunkett  to  remark  that  the  affair  had 
done  more  for  Grattan's  health  than  all  the  medicine 
he  had  taken.  A  duel  resulted  and  Corry  was  shot  in 
the  arm.  Ten  years  later,  while  Grattan  was  at 
Brighton,  Corry  called  at  the  home  of  the  man  who 
had  given  him  such  an  unmerciful  drubbing,  and,  al- 
though the  Grattan  family  wished  to  turn  hmi  away, 
Grattan  himself,  w'ho  had  seen  him  approaching,  went 
to  the  door  and  took  his  hand. 

A  few  days  after  the  Corry  incident  the  articles  of 
union  were  called  up  for  second  reading.  The  fight 
to  prevent  the  destruction  of  the  parliament  was  now 
manifestly  hopeless,  although  Grattan  returned  to  the 
attack  with  his  accustomed  brilliance.  Never  was  he 
more  touching  or  more  impressive  than  when  he  spoke 
his  last  word  for  the  parliament  w^hich  was  his  child : 

"The  constitution  may  be  for  a  time  so  lost ;  the  char- 
acter of  the  country  can  not  be  so  lost.  The  ministers 
of  the  crown  will,  or  may,  perhaps,  find  that  it  is  not  so 
easy  to  put  down  forever  an  ancient  and  respectable  na- 
tion by  abilities,  however  great,  and  by  power  and  by  cor- 
ruption, however  irresistible ;  liberty  may  repair  her 
golden  beams,  and  with  redoubled  heart  animate  the 
country ;  the  cry  of  loyalty  will  not  long  continue  against 
the  principles  of  liberty ;  loyalty  is  a  noble,  a  judicious 
and  a  capacious  principle,  but  in  these  countries  loyalty, 
distinct  from  liberty.  Is  corruption. 

"The  cry  of  the  connection  will  not  in  the  end  avail 
against  the  principles  of  liberty.  Connection  is  a  wise 
and  profound  policy ;  but  connection  without  an  Irish 
parliament  is  connection  without  its  own  principle,  with- 
out analogy  of  condition,  without  the  pride  of  honor  that 
should  attend  it;  is  innovation,  is  peril,  is  subjugation — 
not  connection. 


108  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

'The  cry  of  disaffection  will  not  in  the  end  avail  against 
the  principle  of  liberty. 

"Yet  I  do  not  give  up  my  country — I  see  her  in  a 
swoon,  but  she  is  not  dead — though  in  her  tomb  she  lies 
helpless  and  motionless,  still  there  is  on  her  lips  a  spirit 
of  life,  and  on  her  cheek  a  glow  of  beauty — 

"Thou  art  not  conquered ;  beauty's  ensign  yet 
Is  crimson  on  thy  lips,  and  in  thy  cheeks, 
And  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there. 

"While  a  plank  of  the  vessel  sticks  together  I  will  not 
leave  her;  let  the  courtier  present  his  flimsy  sail,  and 
carry  the  light  bark  of  his  faith  with  every  new  breath 
of  wind — I  will  remain  anchored  here  with  fidelity  to 
the  fortunes  of  my  country,  faithful  to  her  freedom, 
faithful  to  her  fall." 

After  the  consummation  of  the  union,  Grattan,  a 
melancholy  wreck  of  his  former  self,  retired  to  Tinne- 
hinch  where  he  devoted  himself  to  the  education  of  his 
children.  His  solitude  was  cheered  by  his  love  of 
music  and  literature.  Often  in  the  mornings  he  would 
w^alk,  a  mile  distant,  to  an  old  Catholic  churchyard, 
beautifully  situated  on  an  eminence  overlooking  the 
Waterfall  River.  There  beside  the  ivy-grown  and 
crumbling  w^alls,  beneath  the  shade  of  mighty  trees, 
he  would  sit  for  hours,  listening  to  the  murmur  of  the 
water.  His  children,  who  often  accompanied  him, 
sometimes  saw  him  start  into  fits  of  frenzy,  or  sit  with 
bowed  head  and  in  tears.  In  time,  however,  his  grief 
was  moderated,  and  his  health  improved.  Summer 
and  winter  he  was  wont  to  go,  on  rising,  directly  to 
the  river  to  take  a  plunge,  and  thus,  all  unconsciously, 
he  w-as  gathering  strength  for  the  battles  for  his  coun- 
try that  still  awaited  him. 


HENRY    GRATTAN  109 

VIII 

The  moment  the  Irish  parliament  was  destroyed 
Charles  James  Fox,  an  ardent  admirer  of  Grattan, 
urged  him  to  enter  the  house  of  commons  in  London, 
and  form  the  nucleus  of  an  Irish  party  which  should 
work  in  conjunction  with  the  Whigs  for  Catholic 
emancipation.  It  had  been  one  of  the  ambitions 
of  Grattan's  life  to  contribute  to  the  liberation  of 
the  larger  portion  of  his  fellow  countrymen  and 
the  importunities  of  Fox  impelled  him  to  enter  the 
imiperial  parliament  in  the  hope  of  accomplishing 
something  in  that  direction.  From  the  time  of  his 
entrance  in  1804  until  his  death  in  1815  he  threw 
himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  fight  for  eman- 
cipation and  in  the  interval  led  with  brilliancy  and 
eloquence  many  a  forlorn  hope.  The  genius  which 
had  so  impressed  the  Irish  people  instantly  made  a 
profound  impression  on  the  statesmen  of  Saint  Ste- 
phens and  he  was  accorded  first  rank  among  the  great 
orators  whose  voices  were  then  heard  within  that  an- 
cient chamber.  The  part  so  impressively  played  by 
him  during  these  years  will  be  adequately  covered  in 
the  study  of  O'Connell,  who  led  the  fight  in  Ireland. 
Suffice  it  to  say  now  that  in  the  very  last  year  of  his 
life  he  was  found  fighting  with  undiminished  fire. 
Old,  and  broken  with  toil  and  trouble,  he  led  the  fight 
for  the  Relief  bill  of  1819,  which  was  defeated  in  the 
commons  by  but  three  votes.  As  evidence  of  his  fight- 
ing spirit  at  that  time  we  have  but  to  refer  to  his  mas- 
terful speech  on  that  occasion  and  his  indignant  chal- 
lenge to  English  arrogance. 


110  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

"The  objection  that  the  Irish  are  below  the  privileges 
that  emancipation  would  confer/'  he  said,  *T  scorn  to 
answer.  You  should  answer  it ;  for  that  argument  would 
say  that  you  had  governed  the  Irish  so  ill  as  to  put  them 
below  the  blessings  of  a  free  constitution.  They  want 
bread,  it  is  said,  and  not  liberty ;  and  then  you  leave  them 
without  bread  and  without  liberty — and  here  your  con- 
duct is  as  inconsistent  as  your  assertion  is  unwarrant- 
able. You  give  the  elective  franchise  to  the  people  so 
described,  and  you  refuse  the  representative  to  those  who 
are  not  pretended  to  come  within  that  description. 

"The  objection  that  the  Roman  Catholics  do  not  love 
liberty,  I  despise  equally.  What — in  these  walls  to  say 
so?  In  these  walls  that  have  witnessed  their  confirma- 
tion of  Magna  Charta  thirty  times,  and  in  this  city  whose 
tower  guards  that  great  sacred  instrument  of  liberty? 
There  are  now  extant  of  those  who  trace  themselves  to 
the  signature  of  the  Charta  three  families ;  they  are  Ro- 
man Catholics;  they  are  petitioners,  and  they  desire  to 
share  that  liberty  which  their  ancestors  gave  to  the  peo- 
ple of  England." 

It  was  in  the  fall  of  the  year  of  the  delivery  of  this 
speech  that  the  health  of  Grattan  began  to  fail  rap- 
idly. He  retired  for  recuperation  to  the  mountains  of 
Wicklow.  He  caught  a  severe  cold  from  the  dews  of 
the  evening  and  on  his  return  to  Tinnehinch  he  was 
troubled  with  severe  pains  in  his  chest.  In  March, 
1820,  he  was  able  to  go  up  to  Dublin  for  the  election, 
but  the  state  of  his  health  precluded  his  participation 
on  the  hustings.  As  his  illness  increased  he  mani- 
fested a  deep  anxiety  to  return  to  London  for  the 
opening  of  parliament,  as  he  had  set  his  heart  on  mak- 
ing one  more  appeal  in  behalf  of  his  proscribed  coun- 
trymen. He  coveted  one  more  honor — that  of  pre- 
senting the  Catholic  petition  and  making  the  motion. 


HENRY    GRATTAN  111 

Realizing  his  condition  he  decided  to  make  the  jour- 
ney by  slow  stages.  But  toward  the  latter  part  of 
April  his  disease  had  made  such  alarming  progress  that 
his  physicians  positively  forbade  his  attem.pting  the 
journey.  Turning  to  the  men  of  science  he  said,  "We 
are  both  right;  you  in  ordering  me  to  stay,  and  I  in  de- 
ciding to  go."  He  wrote  to  Sir  Henry  Parnell  that  he 
would  reach  London  early  in  May,  and  to  give  notice 
that  he  would  bring  in  the  Catholic  petition  on  the  tenth. 
He  grew  weaker,  but  persisted  in  his  determination.  "I 
will  bring  in  the  petition,"  he  said,  "and  then  I  will 
make  my  bow."  By  the  first  of  the  month,  however, 
he  was  so  much  w^orse  that  he  had  to  abandon  the 
idea,  and,  at  his  request,  Parnell  announced  a  post- 
ponement of  the  motion  until  ]\Iay  twenty-fifth.  On 
the  twelfth  of  the  month  a  deputation  of  Catholics 
waited  upon  him  at  his  home,  and  he  assured  them  he 
would  present  their  petition.  "My  last  breath,"  he 
said,  "belongs  to  my  country." 

Further  efforts  to  dissuade  him  were  abandoned. 
As  he  prepared  for  the  journey,  his  friends  called  to 
make  their  farewells.  "I  will  fall  at  my  post,"  he  said 
to  one  of  them.  When  he  set  out  for  London  his  con- 
dition was  little  short  of  desperate.  The  quay  was 
swarming  with  people  who  surrounded  his  carriage 
and  cheered.  Although  greatly  agitated,  he  called  for 
some  wine  and  drank  to  the  health  of  the  people  of 
Dublin.  On  arriving  at  Liverpool  he  was  met  at  the 
quay  by  an  enthusiastic  crowd,  which  insisted  on  tak- 
ing the  horses  from  his  carriage  and  drawing  him  to 
the  hotel.  By  this  time  he  w^as  unable  even  to  bear 
the  jarring  of  carriages,  and  a  boat,  fitted  up  with 
mattresses  and  protected  by  canvas,  was  taken  and  he 


112  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

prcxreeded  by  canal.  When  he  reached  London  tlie 
physicians  tried  to  dissuade  him  from  going  to  the 
house,  but  in  vain.  The  speaker  proffered  every  aid 
and  offered  the  use  of  his  home.  His  strength  failed 
him  so  rapidly  after  this,  tliat  he  was  compelled  to 
surrender,  and  on  June  fourth,  1820,  in  the  seventy- 
fourth  year  of  his  age,  Henr>'  Grattan  passed  from 
the  ser\-ice  of  Ireland.  While  it  was  his  desire  to  be 
buried  in  his  own  countr}*,  on  the  ground  bestowed 
upon  him  by  the  gratitude  of  his  people,  the  universal 
demand  of  the  empire  was  that  he  should  rest  among 
the  statesm.en  of  Westminster  Abbey.  And  there  he 
lies,  side  by  side,  with  Charles  James  Fox — the  man 
he  loved,  and  by  whom  he  was  beloved. 

"Here,  near  yon  walls  so  often  shook 

By  the  stem  might  of  his  rebuke ; 

While  bigotr}',  with  blanching  brow. 

Heard  him,  and  blushed,  but  would  not  bow. 

Here,  where  his  ashes  may  fulfil 

His  country's  cherished  mission  still, 

And  when,  by  his  example  fired. 

Some  patriot,  like  himself,  inspired. 

Again  the  arduous  theme  shall  try, 

For  which  'twas  his  to  live  and  die ; 

Here  let  him  point  his  last  appeal, 

Where  statesmen  and  where  kings  shall  kneel  ; 

His  bones  will  warn  them  to  be  just, 

Still  pleading,  even  from  the  dust." 

IX 

No  study  of  Grattan  would  be  complete  without 
some  reference  to  the  more  personal  side  of  his  char- 
acter, which  was  gentle,  lovable,  generous  and  pure. 


HENRY    GRATTAX  113 

If  the  orator  of  the  parliament  houses  of  Dublin  and 
London  was  inspiring  and  admirable,  the  gentleman 
of  Tinnehinch  was  charming  and  entertaining,  and 
when  he  was  talking  in  his  library  or  while  meander- 
ing about  the  exquisite  valley  of  his  home,  he  was 
quite  as  eloquent  and  illuminating  as  when  he  ad- 
dressed himself  to  senates  or  assemblies.  Very  soon 
after  his  marriage  he  sought  a  beautiful  spot  of  com- 
parative seclusion  whither  he  might  repair  for  the 
pleasures  of  domesticity  and  recuperation,  and  his 
thoughts  instinctively  turned  to  the  charming  vale 
which  had  so  entranced  him  in  boyhood  when  visiting 
his  uncle  at  Celbridge.  It  appears  that  it  was  one  of 
the  dreams  of  his  youth  ultimately  to  have  a  home  in 
the  county  of  Wicklow,  for  we  find  him  writing  to  a 
friend,  *'I  have  not  forgotten  the  romantic  valley — 
I  look  on  it  with  an  eye  of  forecast — it  may  be  the  re- 
creation of  an  active  life,  or  the  retreat  of  an  obscure 
one."  The  hills,  the  pastoral  beauty  of  the  valley,  the 
waterfalls,  the  winding  woodland  paths,  the  little  ruins 
of  Tinnehinch  made  such  an  indelible  impression  upon 
his  youth,  that  he  sought  a  home  amid  its  scenery;,  and 
that  home,  the  solace  of  his  sorrowing  maturity,  should 
have  been  his  sepulcher.  Not  only  is  it  associated  with 
the  sorrows  of  the  despairing  patriot — the  spot  where 
he  meditated  in  agony  of  spirit  upon  the  destruction  of 
the  parliament,  the  scene  of  the  conferences  in  the  in- 
terest of  Catholic  emancipation — but  it  had  been  pur- 
chased with  the  money  bestowed  upon  him  for  the 
purpose  by  the  gratitude  of  his  country.  Every  mo- 
ment that  he  could  properly  spare  from  public  service 
was  lovingly  devoted  to  the  improvement  of  the  estate. 
The  inn  at  Tinnehinch  was  converted  into  a  residence. 


114  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

We  have  amusing  glimpses  of  Grattan  battling  with 
a  mountain  stream  which  baffled  his  efforts  to  restrain 
it  and  prevent  its  frequent  inundation  of  the  meadows. 
His  assumption  of  the  airs  of  a  country  gentleman 
appears  to  have  been  immensely  diverting  to  his 
friends,  and  Sir  Hercules  Langrishe  has  handed  down 
a  pun  about  Grattan  "contending  with  his  overwhelm- 
ing Flood."  He  became  deeply  attached  to  the  place, 
so  much  so  that  when  during  the  dismal  days  of  '98 
soldiers  cut  down  some  of  the  finest  trees  on  the  estate, 
his  wife  kept  it  from  him  lest  the  news  might  intensify 
his  suffering.  In  his  memorandum  book  is  written  his 
sorrow  over  the  death  of  a  favorite  steward,  and  his 
regret  that  he  could  not  be  buried  at  Tinnehinch.  He 
was  never  so  happy  as  when  surrounded  at  his  home 
by  the  brilliant  men  he  loved — Cur  ran,  Plunkett,  Bur- 
rows, and  lesser  lights,  with  w^hom  he  wandered,  boy- 
wise,  through  the  woods,  along  the  river,  across  the 
meadows.  He  was  from  his  early  youth  an  inveterate 
reader,  and  after  he  became  a  member  of  the  imperial 
parliament,  he  found  more  time  to  minister  to  his 
taste  for  literature.  When  quite  advanced  in  years  he 
took  up  the  study  of  French,  and,  for  his  own  amuse- 
ment, translated  into  that  language  some  of  the  stories 
of  Miss  Edgeworth,  for  v/hose  novels  he  had  a  par- 
tiality. 

Throughout  his  life  he  was  a  lover  of  society,  and 
after  he  entered  the  political  activity  of  the  empire,  he 
found  himself  deluged  with  invitations  to  the  most 
exclusive  and  brilliant  houses  in  London.  He  was  a 
frequent  guest  at  Holland  House,  then  in  the  heyday 
of  its  glory;  at  Spencer  House,  where  Lady  Spencer 
complained   that   the   brilliancy   of   his   conversation 


HENRY    GRATTAN  115 

caused  the  guests  to  linger  late  into  the  night;  at 
Devonshire  House  and  Buckingham  House — both 
noted  as  the  rendezvous  of  the  intellectually  elect,  and 
the  politically  powerful.  Even  in  England,  however, 
he  preferred  the  country  to  the  garish  glories  of  the 
metropolis,  and  frequently,  after  his  labors  in  the 
house  he  would  take  a  boat  down  the  Thames  and 
walk  along  its  beloved  banks  beneath  the  shade  of  its 
great  elms.  Occasionally  he  would  make  excursions 
into  the  country  to  a  place  where  he  could  hear  the 
nightingales,  for  he  loved  music  ''like  an  Italian.'* 

After  his  love  of  the  country,  and  literature,  he 
found  his  keenest  delight  in  the  theater.  His  son  has 
given  us  a  picture  of  a  fascinating  talk-fest  at  Tun- 
bridge  Wells  between  Samuel  Rogers,  the  poet,  Grat- 
tan  and  Cumberland,  who  resided  there  at  the  time,  in 
which  the  sole  topics  were  dramas  and  actors — their 
relative  merits,  their  eccentricities,  their  styles  of  act- 
ing. He  prided  himself  on  a  critical  knowledge  of  all 
the  great  artists  of  his  time,  and  could  regale  a  com- 
pany for  an  evening  with  criticisms  of  Garrick,  Barry, 
Mrs.  Fitzhenry,  Kemble,  Kean,  Mrs.  Siddons  and 
Miss  O'Neill.  He  was  persuaded  to  accompany  his 
son  to  see  the  latter,  w^ho  came  upon  the  scene  rather 
late  in  his  life,  and  he  who  had  seen  the  master  mum- 
mers of  an  earlier  day  went  prepared  to  be  disappointed 
with  her  impersonation  of  Ophelia.  Before  the  eve- 
ning was  over  the  veteran  w'as  in  tears.  He  later  saw 
her  in  Juliet  and  became  one  of  her  most  devoted  fol- 
lowers. 

His  peculiar  social  charm  appears  to  have  been  his 
simplicity,  his  boyishness,  his  utter  lack  of  affectation, 
and  while  his  conversation  did  not  emit  so  many  bril- 


116  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

liant,  dazzling  sparks  as  that  of  Curran  whose  mim- 
icry and  drollery  were  irresistible,  it  possessed  a  con- 
stant glow.  There  was  substance  in  all  he  said  even 
at  the  dinner  table.  It  is  said  that  of  all  the  brilliant 
men  with  whom  he  associated  in  his  earlier  life — and 
they  were  the  ornaments  of  Ireland — none  could  ap- 
proach him  in  the  felicity  with  which  he  could,  if  given 
time,  strike  off  a  characterization  of  a  man  or  a 
woman. 

Grattan  was  extremely  human,  with  human  weak- 
nesses, even  to  the  writing  of  bad  poetry.  No  man 
was  ever  more  loyal  in  his  friendships.  He  never 
broke  with  a  friend  until  he  felt  that  friend  had  broken 
with  his  country,  and  it  was  this  conviction  which  led 
to  the  break  with  Flood.  His  love  for  Curran  was 
tender;  his  love  of  Charlemont  so  intense  that  he  per- 
mitted no  political  differences  to  come  between  them; 
his  love  of  Fox  so  deep  that  he  forgave  his  not  un- 
natural timidity  in  failing  to  press  Catholic  emancipa- 
tion as  he  felt  should  have  been  done;  and  he  loved 
Plunkett  as  a  father  loves  a  son.  Among  the  great 
Irish  orators  there  lived  none  purer,  truer,  sweeter, 
nobler  than  Henry  Grattan. 


It  is  probable  that  the  average  critic  would  pro- 
nounce Grattan  the  greatest  of  the  Irish  orators.  In  a 
physical  sense  he  did  not  possess  the  advantages  of 
O'Connell,  Plunkett  or  Meagher,  but  was  handicapped 
to  a  degree  almost  equal  to  Curran.  There  was  noth- 
ing commanding  in  his  stature,  which  was  medium, 
nor  in  his  proportions,  which  were  slight.    If  his  form 


HENRY    GRATTAN  117 

was  slender  it  was  at  least  graceful,  and  there  was  a 
glow  to  his  countenance  more  arresting  than  mere 
bulk.  His  voice,  while  lacking  in  richness,  and  not 
strong  enough  for  tumultuous  outdoor  meetings,  pos- 
sessed a  variety  of  tones  which  lent  themselves  to 
musical  modulation;  and  while  he  spoke  ordinarily 
with  great  rapidity  his  enunciation  was  so  perfect  that 
not  a  syllable  was  slurred,  and  he  was  understood  per- 
fectly in  all  parts  of  the  house.  In  striving  for  effect 
he  had  a  manner  of  raising  his  voice  to  the  highest 
pitch  and  suddenly  lowering  it  almost  to  a  whisper. 
No  man,  according  to  his  contemporaries,  could  put 
so  much  of  scorn  into  the  pronunciation  of  a  single 
word.  His  delivery  was  not  such  as  might  have  been 
expected  from  a  close  student  of  the  stage.  His  ges- 
tures were  explosive  rather  than  graceful,  wholly  un- 
studied, and  at  first  a  trifle  disconcerting.  It  was  this 
phase  of  his  art  which  sent  a  momentary  chill  through 
his  English  friends  during  the  first  few  moments  of 
his  initial  speech  in  the  imperial  house  of  commons. 
The  impressiveness  of  his  delivery  consisted  almost 
entirely  in  the  intense  earnestness  and  ardor  with 
which  he  spoke. 

He  made  no  pretense  to  speaking  without  prepara- 
tion. While  it  is  probable  that  some  of  his  finer 
passages,  such  as  the  peroration  to  his  speech  on  the 
Declaration  of  Rights,  were  written  out  and  memo- 
rized, it  was  his  method  merely  to  jot  down  the  heads 
of  his  speech.  His  superiority,  as  an  agitator,  over  all 
his  predecessors,  consisted  in  his  genius  in  sprinkling 
his  speeches  with  catch  phrases  which  were  eagerly 
seized  upon  by  the  multitude  as  shibboleths.  One  of 
the  few  complaints  of  his  critics  has  been  that  he  re- 


118  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

lied  too  extensively  upon  the  epigram.  He  appears  to 
have  fallen  naturally  into  the  use  of  this  rhetorical 
weapon.  He  resorted  to  imagery,  in  common  with  all 
the  Irish  orators,  but  unlike  many,  he  curbed  his  fancy, 
toned  down  his  figures,  and  gave  to  his  pictures  a  pol- 
ish that  places  them  above  rebuke.  No  speaker  ever 
felt  more  passionately  than  he,  but  in  his  most  power- 
ful denunciations  he  never  permitted  the  intensity  of 
his  passion  to  push  him  to  the  extremes  of  expression. 
While  not  perhaps  so  close  a  reasoner  as  Flood,  the 
argumentative  features  of  his  orations  are  the  most 
impressive,  never  overburdened  v/ith  ornament,  or 
illustration.  Feeling  that  he  was  speaking  for  pos- 
terity he  fortified  himself  vvith  all  available  knowledge 
on  the  subject  he  discussed.  Thus  his  speeches  on 
tithes  are  treatises,  his  speeches  in  behalf  of  Catholic 
emancipation  are  histories.  In  this  regard  he  greatly 
resembled  Edmund  Burke,  and  like  Burke,  too,  he  in- 
terspersed his  discourses  with  philosophical  comments 
of  a  high  order.  Unlike  some  of  his  Irish  contempo- 
raries he  was  a  master  in  the  art  of  condensation.  He 
possessed  the  knack  of  saying  as  much  in  a  paragraph 
as  some  men  are  able  to  say  in  a  speech.  This  was 
partly  due  to  his  genius  in  the  selection  of  his  topics 
as  well  as  to  his  capacity  for  concise  statement.  It  is 
worthy  of  comment  that  with  Grattan  concise  state- 
ment does  not  imply  jerky,  prosy  sentences.  On  the 
contrary  he  was  able  to  impart  a  musical  rhythm  to 
his  sentences  suggestive  of  the  Greeks.  But  after  all  is 
said  regarding  the  mechanical  features  of  his  art,  the 
fact  remains  that  his  vast  superiority  lies  in  the  nobil- 
ity and  purity  of  spirit  that  shines  through  his  speeches. 
Critics  are  agreed  that  few  modern  orators  have 


HENRY    GRATTAN  119 

surpassed  him  In  the  power  of  invective  and  bitter 
sarcasm.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  wisdom 
of  his  attack  on  Flood,  there  can  be  but  one  opinion 
as  to  the  overpowering  manner  in  which  it  was  made. 
Its  closing  paragraph  will  give  some  idea  of  the  nature 
of  the  whole: 

"I  will  interrupt  him,  and  say,  Sir,  you  are  much  mis- 
taken if  you  think  that  your  talents  have  been  as  great 
as  your  life  has  been  reprehensible;  you  began  your  par- 
liamentary career  with  an  acrimony  and  personality 
which  could  only  have  been  justified  by  a  supposition 
of  virtue:  after  a  rank  and  clamorous  opposition  you 
became  on  a  sudden  silent;  you  were  silent  for  seven 
years ;  you  were  silent  on  the  greatest  questions,  and  you 
were  silent  for  money.  In  1773,  while  a  negotiation  was 
pending  to  sell  your  talents  and  your  turbulence,  you  ab- 
sconded from  your  duty  in  parliament,  you  forsook  your 
law  of  Poyning's,  you  forsook  the  questions  of  economy 
and  abandoned  all  the  old  themes  of  your  former  dec- 
lamation ;  you  were  not  at  that  period  to  be  found  in  the 
house;  you  were  seen,  like  a  guilty  spirit,  haunting  the 
lobby  of  the  house  of  commons,  watching  the  moment 
in  which  the  question  should  be  put,  that  you  might  van- 
ish ;  you  were  descried,  with  a  criminal  anxiety,  retiring 
from  the  scenes  of  your  past  glory ;  or  you  were  perceived 
coasting  the  upper  benches  of  this  house,  like  a  bird  of 
prey,  with  an  evil  aspect  and  a  sepulchral  note,  meditat- 
ing to  pounce  on  its  quarry : — these  ways,  they  were  not 
the  ways  of  honor,  you  practised  pending  a  negotiation 
which  was  to  end  either  in  your  sale  or  your  sedition : 
the  former  taking  place,  you  supported  the  rankest  meas- 
ures that  ever  came  before  parliament — the  embargo  of 
1776,  for  instance.  *0  fatal  embargo,  that  breach  of  law 
and  ruin  of  commerce.'  You  supported  the  unparalleled 
profusion  and  jobbing  of  Lord  Harcourt's  scandalous 
ministry — the  address  to  support  the  American  war,  the 
other  address  to  send  four  thousand  men,  which  you  had 


120  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

yourself  declared  to  be  necessary  for  the  defense  of  Ire- 
land, to  fight  against  the  liberties  of  America,  to  which 
you  had  declared  yourself  a  friend ;  you,  Sir,  who  delight 
to  utter  execrations  against  the  American  commissioners 
of  1778,  on  account  of  their  hostility  to  America;  you, 
Sir,  who  manufacture  stage  thunder  against  Mr.  Eden, 
for  his  anti-American  principles ;  you,  Sir,  whom  it 
pleases  to  chant  a  hymn  to  the  immortal  Hampden ;  you, 
Sir,  approved  of  the  tyranny  exercised  against  America ; 
and  you,  Sir,  voted  four  thousand  Irish  troops  to  cut 
the  throats  of  the  Americans  fighting  for  their  freedom, 
fighting  for  your  freedom,  fighting  for  the  great  principle, 
liberty;  but  you  found  at  last — and  this  should  be  an 
eternal  lesson  to  men  of  your  craft  and  cunning — that 
the  king  had  only  dishonored  you ;  the  court  had  bought, 
but  would  not  trust  you ;  and,  having  voted  for  the  worst 
measures,  you  remained  for  seven  years  the  creature  of 
salary  without  the  confidence  of  government.  Mortified 
at  the  discovery,  and  stung  by  disappointment,  you  be- 
take yourself  to  the  sad  expedients  of  duplicity ;  you  try 
the  sorry  game  of  a  trimmer  in  your  progress  to  the  acts 
of  an  incendiary;  you  give  no  honest  support  either  to 
the  government  or  to  the  people ;  you,  at  the  most  critical 
period  of  their  existence,  take  no  part,  you  sign  no  non- 
consumption  agreement,  you  are  no  Volunteer,  you  op- 
pose no  Perpetual  Mutiny  bill,  no  altered  Sugar  bill ;  you 
declare  that  you  lament  that  the  Declaration  of  Rights 
should  have  been  brought  forward ;  and  observing,  with 
regard  to  prince  and  people,  the  most  impartial  treachery 
and  desertion,  you  justify  the  suspicion  of  your  sovereign 
by  betraying  the  government  as  you  had  sold  the  people : 
until,  at  last,  by  this  hollow  conduct  and  for  some  other 
steps,  the  result  of  mortified  ambition — ^belng  dismissed 
and  another  person  put  in  your  place — you  fly  to  the 
ranks  of  the  Volunteers  and  canvass  for  mutiny;  you 
announce  that  the  country  was  ruined  by  other  men  dur- 
ing that  period  in  which  she  had  been  sold  by  you.  Your 
logic  is  that  the  repeal  of  the  Declaratory  act  is  not  the 
repeal  of  a  law  at  all,  and  the  effect  of  that  logic  is  an 


HENRY    GRATTAN  121 

English  act  affecting  to  emancipate  Ireland  by  exercising 
over  her  the  legislative  authority  of  the  British  parlia- 
ment. Such  has  been  your  conduct,  and  at  such  conduct 
every  order  of  your  fellow  subjects  have  a  right  to  ex- 
claim. The  merchant  may  say  to  you — the  constitutionalist 
may  say  to  you — the  American  may  say  to  you — and  I,  I 
now  say  to  your  beard,  Sir — you  are  not  an  honest  man." 

One  of  Grattan's  oratorical  devices  in  which  he  sur- 
passed was  in  the  mingling  of  a  tribute  to  some  abused 
person  wath  a  denunciation,  sarcastic  or  otherwise,  of 
those  making  the  attack.  This  can  be  illustrated  in 
his  defense  of  Doctor  Kirwin: 

**What  is  the  case  of  Doctor  Kirwin?  That  man  pre- 
ferred this  country  and  our  religion,  and  brought  to  both 
a  genius  superior  to  what  he  found  in  either;  he  called 
forth  the  latent  virtues  of  the  human  heart,  and  taught 
men  to  discover  in  themselves  a  mine  of  charity,  of  which 
the  proprietors  had  been  unconscious ;  in  feeding  the  lamp 
of  charity  he  had  almost  exhausted  the  lamp  of  life;  he 
comes  to  interrupt  the  repose  of  the  pulpit,  and  shakes 
one  world  with  the  thunder  of  the  other.  The  preacher^s 
desk  becomes  the  throne  of  light;  around  him  a  train, 
not  such  as  crouch  and  swagger  at  the  levees  of  princes 
— horse,  foot  and  dragoon — but  that  wherewith  a  great 
genius  peoples  his  own  state ;  charity  in  action,  and  vice 
in  humiliation;  vanity,  arrogance  and  pride  appalled  by 
the  rebuke  of  the  preacher,  and  cheated  for  a  moment  of 
their  native  improbity.  What  reward?  Saint  Nicholas 
within,  or  Saint  Nicholas  without.  The  curse  of  Swift 
is  upon  him  to  have  been  born  an  Irishman ;  to  have  pos- 
sessed a  genius,  and  to  have  used  his  talents  for  the  good 
of  his  country.  Had  this  man,  instead  of  being  the 
brightest  of  preachers,  been  the  dullest  of  lawyers;  had 
he  added  to  dulness  venality ;  had  he  aggravated  the  crime 
of  venality,  and  sold  his  vote,  he  had  been  a  judge:  or, 
had  he  been  born  a  blockhead,  bred  a  slave  and  trained 


122  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

up  in  a  great  English  family,  and  handed  over  as  a  house- 
hold circumstance  to  the  Irish  viceroy,  he  would  have 
been  an  Irish  bishop  and  an  Irish  peer,  with  a  great  pat- 
ronage, perhaps  a  borough,  and  had  returned  members 
to  vote  against  Ireland,  and  the  Irish  parochial  clergy 
must  have  adored  his  stupidity  and  deified  his  dulness. 
But,  under  the  present  system,  Ireland  is  not  the  element 
in  which  a  native  genius  can  rise,  unless  he  sells  that 
genius  to  the  court  and  atones  by  the  apostacy  of  his  con- 
duct for  the  crime  of  his  nativity." 

No  better  example  of  Grattan's  power  of  brilliant 
denunciation  can  be  found  anywhere,  perhaps,  than  in 
his  speech  on  Napoleon  in  the  British  parliament  in 
1815,  but  the  speech  should  be  read  in  its  entirety  to 
be  appreciated  at  its  true  value.  I  shall  conclude  the 
illustrations  of  Grattan's  manner  of  mingling  rebuke 
with  tribute  by  quoting  his  beautiful  reference  to  Lord 
Charlemont  in  connection  with  his  dismissal  from  the 
ministry : 

"We  see  the  old  general  who  led  you  to  your  consti- 
tution march  off;  dismissed  by  your  ministry  as  unfit  to 
be  trusted  with  the  government  of  a  county ;  the  cockade 
of  government  struck  from  his  hat.  That  man  whose  ac- 
complishments gave  a  grace  to  your  cause,  and  whose 
patriotism  gave  a  credit  to  your  nobles ;  whom  the  rabble 
itself  could  not  see  without  veneration,  as  if  they  beheld 
something  not  only  good,  but  sacred.  The  man  who, 
drooping  and  faint  when  you  began  your  struggle,  for- 
got his  infirmity  and  found  in  the  recovery  of  your  con- 
stitution a  vital  principle  added  to  his  own.  The  man 
who,  smit  with  the  eternal  love  of  fame  and  freedom, 
carried  the  people's  standard  until  he  planted  it  on  the 
citadel  of  freedom — see  him  dismissed  from  his  govern- 
ment for  those  very  virtues,  and  by  that  very  minister 
for  whose  continuance  you  are  to  thank  the  king.  See 
him  overwhelmed  at  once  with  the  adoration  of  his  coun- 
try and  the  displeasure  of  her  ministers.     The  history' 


HENRY    GRATTAN  123 

of  nations  is  ofttimes  a  farce.  What  is  the  history  of 
that  nation  that  having,  at  the  hazard  of  everything  dear 
to  her  free  constitution,  obtained  its  mistress,  banishes 
the  champion  and  commits  the  honor  of  the  lady  to  the 
care  of  the  ravisher?  There  was  a  time  when  the  vault 
of  liberty  could  hardly  contain  the  flight  of  your  pinion ; 
some  of  you  went  forth  like  a  giant  rejoicing  in  his 
strength;  and  now  you  stand  like  elves,  at  the  door  of 
your  own  pandemonium.  The  armed  youth  of  the  coun- 
try, like  a  thousand  streams,  thundered  from  a  thousand 
hills,  and  filled  the  plain  with  the  congregated  waters  in 
whose  mirror  was  seen,  for  a  moment,  the  watery  im.age 
of  the  British  constitution ;  the  waters  subside,  the  tor- 
rents cease,  the  rill  ripples  within  its  own  bed,  and  the 
boys  and  children  of  the  village  paddle  in  the  brook." 

Few  of  the  great  orators  have  had  a  greater  felicity 
of  expression  or  could,  in  a  sentence,  throw  out  a  sug- 
gestion of  such  great  significance.  Thus,  in  speaking 
of  the  patriots  who  made  terms  with  the  ministry,  he 
said  that  "they  became  the  tail  of  the  court  and  ceased 
to  be  the  head  of  the  people."  Again,  w^hen  it  was 
proposed  to  conciliate,  he  says,  "be  assured  that  Eng- 
land will  never  grant  to  your  meanness  what  she  re- 
fuses to  your  virtue."  Replying  to  the  suggestion  that 
certain  wrongs  were  righted  by  the  lack  of  prosecu- 
tion, he  exclaimed  that  "robbery  unpunished  does  not 
repeal  the  decalogue."  Touching  upon  the  adoption 
of  a  police  law  in  Dublin  which  had  been  rejected  in 
London,  he  shamed  the  parliament  by  saying  that  "the 
ministers  looked  for  a  plan,  and  they  found  it  in  the 
dirt,  where  the  spirit  and  good  sense  of  the  city  of 
London  had  cast  it."  Objecting  to  the  expenditure 
of  money  for  the  building  of  an  ofificial  mansion,  he 
said :  "I  had  much  rather,  if  you  were  to  go  to  a  great 
expense  for  an  edifice  where  you  had  not  incom.e  for 


124  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

your  establishment,  I  had  much  rather  see  a  hospital 
built  to  humanity,  where  age  and  infirmity  should  sit 
smiling  at  the  gate,  than  this  temple,  built  to  penal 
laws,  where  the  revenue  officer  presides  with  a  quill 
in  his  wig  and  a  penal  clause  in  his  pocket."  Speak- 
ing of  the  purchase  of  parliamentary  seats  and  the  sale 
of  legislators,  he  scornfully  exclaims:  "I  see  some 
who  would  make  a  merit  of  being  publicly  obnoxious, 
and  would  canvass  for  the  favor  of  the  British  min- 
ister, by  exhibiting  the  wounds  of  their  reputation." 
Again,  on  the  same  subject,  he  says:  *They  (coun- 
try gentlemen)  must  see  and  despise  the  pitiful  policy 
of  buying  the  country  gentleman  with  an  offer  to  wrap 
him  up  in  the  old  castoff  clothes  of  the  aristocracy 
— a  clumsy  covering,  and  a  thin  disguise;  never  the 
subject  of  your  respect,  and  frequently  the  subject  of 
your  derision."  One  of  his  most  telling  and  pathetic 
sentences  that  made  an  impression  was  that  *'the  path 
of  public  treachery  in  a  principal  country  leads  to  the 
block,  but  in  a  nation  governed  like  a  province  to  the 
helm."  Answering  the  sneer  that  many  of  the  Cath- 
olics were  uneducated,  he  asked :  "Can  we,  who  have 
enacted  darkness,  reproach  the  Catholics  with  a  want 
of  light?"  Warning  against  the  French  revolutionary 
philosophy,  he  said:  "Touch  not  the  plant  of  Gallic 
growth;  its  fruit  is  death,  though  it  is  not  the  tree 
of  knowledge."  Arguing  that  the  empire  could  not 
object  to  the  Irish  in  foreign  armies  as  long  as  Ire- 
land Is  made  an  impossible  place  of  residence,  he  aptly 
said :  "We  met  our  own  laws  at  Fontenoy."  Insist- 
ing that  the  government  had  no  right  to  interfere  with 
the  religion  of  the  subject,  he  exclaimed :  "The  naked 
Irishman  has  a  right  to  approach  his  God  without  a 


HENRY   GRATTAN  125 

license  from  his  king."     Illustrations  of  Grattan's  fe- 
licity of  expression  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

No  orator  ever  understood  or  appreciated  more 
thoroughly  the  advantages  of  the  right  sort  of  exor- 
dium or  peroration.  His  method  in  opening  was  to 
rush  directly  to  the  point  at  issue — to  state  it  chal- 
lengingly,  defiantly,  concisely  in  a  sentence.  His  pero- 
rations are  almost  invariably  eloquent,  touching, 
deeply  impressive.    One  more  will  be  given. 

"They  advance — the  Catholics — from  the  wilderness 
where  for  a  hundred  years  they  have  wandered,  and  they 
come  laden  with  their  families  and  their  goods,  whether 
conducted  by  an  invisible  hand,  or  by  a  cloudy  pillar,  or 
a  guardian  fire,  and  they  desire  to  be  received  into  your 
hospitable  constitution.  Will  the  elders  of  the  land  come 
forth  to  greet  them?  Or  will  the  British  ministry  send 
forth  their  hornet  to  sting  them  back  into  the  desert? 
I  mentioned  that  their  claim  was  sustained  by  a  power 
above ;  look  up !  Behold  the  balances  of  heaven  !  Pride 
in  the  scale  against  justice,  and  pride  flies  up  and  kicks 
the  beam." 

Among  the  great  orators  of  Ireland  Henry  Grattan 
is  fortunate  in  his  relations  to  posterity.  His  speeches 
are  inseparably  connected  with  the  most  fascinating 
period  of  his  country's  history.  His  is  the  paean  and 
the  lament.  The  student  of  the  past  will  turn  to  Grat- 
tan to  complete  his  understanding  of  the  Declaration 
of  Rights  that  marked  Ireland's  redemption,  and  of 
the  union  which  marked  her  fall.  Nor  can  the  lover 
of  religious  liberty  fail  to  find  in  his  masterful  pleas 
for  Catholic  emancipation  much  that  is  inspiring  and 
illuminating.  Fortunately  for  his  fame  in  England 
and  America  his  style,  while  not  perfect,  perhaps,  has 


126  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

met  with  the  commendation  of  the  critics.  The  stu- 
dent of  British  eloquence  may  pass  by  the  speeches  of 
Flood  as  stilted  and  antiquated,  those  of  Plunkett  as 
prosy,  and  those  of  Sheil  as  strained;  if  he  be  some- 
thing of  a  dullard  he  may  even  ignore  Curran  because 
his  figures  were  sometimes  too  startling;  or  O'Connell 
because  he  spoke  the  language  of  the  people;  or  Phil- 
lips because  he  spoke  the  language  of  the  clouds;  but 
no  one  who  would  know  the  masterpieces  of  British 
eloquence  can  afford  to  ignore  Henry  Grattan  any 
more  than  Chatham,  Burke,  Fox  or  Pitt. 


Ill 

JOHN  PHILPOT  CURRAN 

The  Rebellion  of  '98;  the  Anarchy  of  the  Courts;  the  Story  of 
Packed  Juries  and  Informers ;  the  Reign  of  Terror 

THE  infamies  toward  Ireland  for  which  England 
must  eventually  answer  to  posterity  have  not  been 
confined  to  the  enactment  of  laws  to  destroy  her  com- 
merce and  industries  or  to  debase  and  humiliate  her 
people.  They  have  not  been  confined  to  the  treachery 
and  corruption  through  which  she  struck  down  the 
parliament  of  Dublin,  to  the  massacres  of  the  inno- 
cents or  the  heartless  evictions  of  women  and  children. 
The  blackest,  basest,  most  atrocious  chapter  will  be  re- 
served for  her  legalized  assassinations  of  Irish  patriots 
under  the  forms  of  law  as  related  in  shameful  tales 
of  the  state  trials  of  the  latter  days  of  the  eighteenth 
and  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth  centuries. 

It  was  incidental  to  the  insurrection  of  '98  that 
England,  through  her  constituted  authorities,  began  to 
mob  the  law.  The  rights  of  citizens  were  ruthlessly 
brushed  aside  and  trampled  beneath  the  feet  of  venal 
judges  whose  ermine  dripped  the  slime  of  corruption. 
Evidence  was  secured  through  torture,  and  the  in- 
former, the  most  repulsive  excrescence  of  humanity, 
was  made  a  pampered  favorite  of  the  state.  The 
patriot  was  tried  before  judges  who  understood  that 

127 


128  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

the  government  expected  convictions  and  executions. 
The  court  rooms  were  packed,  in  numerous  notable 
cases,  with  the  soldiery  whose  rattling  musketry  was 
intended  to  intimidate  the  advocate  who  dared  demand 
for  his  Irish  client  the  protection  of  the  law.  The 
juries  were  deHberately  packed  with  the  prejudiced 
and  the  purchased;  and  in  at  least  one  instance  where 
the  jurors  thus  selected  recoiled  in  horror  from  the 
crime  expected  of  them,  the  constituted  authorities 
did  not  hesitate  to  introduce  liquor  into  their  delibera- 
tions and  death  warrants  were  written  with  the  trem- 
bling fingers  of  drunken  men. 

The  heroes  of  '98,  however,  were  not  left  entirely 
naked  to  their  enemies.  One  man  there  was  whom 
the  gruesome  scaffolds,  the  thousand  graves,  the  glis- 
tening bayonets,  the  scowling  court  and  the  bloody 
ministry  could  not  silence.  Ireland  found  a  voice  for 
her  unfortunate  sons.  It  was  the  voice  of  genius — a 
voice  so  eloquent  that  its  message  has  been  carried 
down  through  the  century  and  will  instruct  the  world 
in  the  deep  damnation  of  '98  as  long  as  the  language 
lives.  It  was  the  voice  of  that  marvelous  man,  the 
most  lovable,  in  many  respects  the  most  brilliant  genius 
that  Ireland  has  produced — the  voice  of  John  Philpot 
Curran. 


In  the  year  1750  there  were  probably  few  villages  in 
Ireland  more  obscure  than  the  village  of  Newmarket 
in  the  county  of  Cork.  Among  the  quaint  characters 
of  the  community  was  James  Curran,  a  descendant  of 
one  of  Cromwell's  soldiers  who,  in  a  minor  position, 


JOHN   PHILPOT   CURRAN  129 

eked  out  a  mere  existence  with  a  meager  salary.  He 
was  the  object  of  much  amusement  because  of  his  love 
of  disputation  and  his  familiarity  with  the  Greek  and 
Roman  classics.  Among  the  villagers,  however,  he 
was  looked  upon  as  inferior  in  mentality  to  his  wife, 
who  was  saturated  with  the  poetic  traditions  of  Erin 
and  could  relate  the  beautiful  stories  of  the  olden 
time,  before  the  fairies  tripped  away,  with  an  eloquence 
that  fascinated  her  humble  audiences.  It  is  not  re- 
markable that  even  in  this  obscure  village  of  the  county 
of  Cork  the  child  of  parents  so  unusual  should  develop 
qualities  beyond  the  ordinary,  and  soon  the  village 
gossips  transferred  their  attention  from  the  parents 
to  the  child  who  was  born  on  July  twenty-fourth  and 
called  John  Philpot  Curran. 

There  were  no  Froissarts  lingering  then  in  New- 
market to  chronicle  the  career  of  the  ragged  genius 
and  little  is  known  of  his  childhood  beyond  the  fact 
that  he  possessed  his  mother's  wit  and  fancy  and  an 
irreverential  and  mischievous  disposition.  Unkempt, 
dirty  no  doubt,  but  effervescent  with  the  joy  of  living, 
he  played  marbles  and  frequented  the  fairs  where  he 
delighted  in  the  interchange  of  repartee,  and  still  more 
in  the  fights  that  followed  the  frolics.  One  day  while 
playing  in  the  street  an  old  gentleman  stood  by  enjoy- 
ing the  originality  of  the  boy's  observations,  his  wit 
and  waggery.  He  invited  the  boy  to  his  home,  taught 
him  the  classics,  and  persuaded  his  parents  to  give  him 
a  thorough  education.  He  progressed  with  remarkable 
rapidity  in  his  studies  and  in  his  nineteenth  year  he 
matriculated  at  old  Trinity. 

Curran's  career  at  college  inspired  him  with  that 
ardent  love  of  the  classics  that  never  grew  cold  and 


130  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

developed  the  social  qualities  which  endeared  him  in 
later  years  to  the  brilliant  circles  that  surrounded  him. 
Here  we  get  our  first  glimpse  of  Curran  the  mimic,  the 
wit,  the  royal  spendthrift,  the  brilliant  raconteur,  and 
see  him  rattling  his  few  remaining  shillings  like  a  lord 
as  he  plunged  into  the  rollicking  life  of  the  town  with 
wild  abandon. 

On  leaving  Trinity  he  renounced  his  original  ambi- 
tion for  an  ecclesiastical  career  and  went  to  London 
where  he  enrolled  as  a  student  of  law  in  the  society 
of  the  Middle  Temple.  This  period  marked  the  fasci- 
nating development  of  that  rare  genius  which  was  des- 
tined to  link  his  name  with  that  of  the  choice  spirits 
of  the  age.  The  bustle  and  brilliancy  of  London 
thrilled  while  it  froze  him.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
life  he  faced  the  world,  and  the  sorrows  of  humanity 
were  impressed  upon  his  sensibilities — sorrows  with 
which  he  was  to  become  so  familiar  and  to  use  so  ef- 
fectively in  reaching  the  hearts  of  men.  He  wrote  to 
a  friend  that  "the  thousand  gilded  chariots"  would 
make  one  think  that  "the  world  assembled  to  play  the 
fool  in  London  unless  you  believe  the  report  of  the 
passing  bells  and  hearses."  On  learning  with  horror 
that  in  the  room  adjoining  his  a  man  had  been  dead 
and  utterly  neglected  for  two  days  he  whimsically 
wrote  that  he  played  a  dirge  on  a  Jew's-harp,  and 
would  continue  the  funereal  tribute  while  "he  con- 
tinues to  be  my  neighbor."  Who  shall  say  that  little 
incidents  like  these  did  not  enter  into  the  weaving  of 
the  splendid  woof  of  Curran's  genius — a  genius  which 
saw  laughter  through  tears. 

The  throbbing  life  of  the  metropolis  kindled  his  am- 
bition and  he  devoted  himself  with  assiduity  to  his 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  131 

studies.  He  was  much  too  poor  and  obscure  to  touch 
even  the  outer  fringe  of  the  high  society  that  was 
later  to  do  him  homage.  But  while  meandering  about 
the  coffee  houses  he  once  caught  sight  of  Goldsmith — 
a  kindred  genius — and  once  he  gazed  with  awe  upon 
Mansfield  on  the  bench.  Several  times  his  improvi- 
dence led  him  to  the  theater  where  he  was  captivated 
by  the  art  of  Garrick,  It  was  this  very  improvidence 
which  paved  the  way  for  his  one  meeting  with  a  celeb- 
rity while  in  London.  His  money  gone,  his  remittance 
delayed,  and  unable  to  dine,  he  sauntered  forth  gaily 
enough  into  Saint  James'  Park,  where  he  sat  down  on 
a  bench  and  w^histled  a  melancholy  Irish  air,  a  re- 
minder of  his  native  village.  The  old  tune  attracted 
the  attention  of  an  old  man  at  the  other  end  of  the 
bench. 

"Pray,  sir,  may  I  venture  to  ask  where  you  learned 
that  tune?"  inquired  the  stranger. 

"Indeed,  sir,  indeed  you  may,  sir,"  replied  Curran; 
"I  learned  it  in  my  native  country,  in  Ireland." 

"But  how  comes  it,  sir,  at  this  hour  when  other  peo- 
ple are  dining,  you  remain  here  v\^histling  old  Irish 
airs?" 

"Alas,  sir,  I,  too,  have  been  in  the  habit  of  dining," 
Curran  replied,  "but,  to-day,  my  money  gone,  my 
credit  not  yet  arrived,  I  am  even  forced  to  come  and 
dine  upon  a  whistle  in  the  park." 

The  old  man  was  Macklin,  the  Irish  actor,  and  that 
day  Curran  dined  as  the  guest  of  the  actor.  A  few 
years  later  when  they  met  again  it  was  at  a  fashion- 
able dinner  in  Dublin  where  Macklin  was  the  guest  of 
honor  and  Curran  was  invited  to  impart  brilliance  to 
the  banquet. 


132  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

It  was  at  this  period  that  he  began,  in  part  uncon- 
sciously, to  aid  in  the  development  of  his  genius.  His 
reading  at  this  time  was  significant.  The  melancholy 
beauty  of  Thompson's  Seasons  made  a  passionate  ap- 
peal to  him,  and  he  read  Sterne,  that  master  of  the 
artistry  of  word  weaving,  while  Junius  and  Paradise 
Lost  were  studied  and  read  aloud  for  oratorical  style. 
The  unconscious  part  of  his  training  came  in  his  at- 
tendance on  wakes  and  weddings  where  he  received 
his  lesson  in  pathos  and  mirth,  and  in  his  familiar  in- 
tercourse with  the  peasantry.  On  his  vacations  at 
Newmarket,  he  fathomed  and  learned  to  know  the 
Irish  heart.  The  most  impressive  phase  of  his  London 
development,  however,  was  in  the  stubborn  molding  of 
his  oratorical  art.  He  was  naturally  eloquent,  but  not 
an  orator  by  nature.  Because  of  a  confusion  in  his 
speech,  which  had  led  his  comrades  to  dub  him  "Stut- 
tering Jack,"  he  set  to  work  doggedly  to  remedy  the 
defect,  but  it  was  long  before  he  overcame  the  diffi- 
culty. While  he  was  a  persistent  attendant  at  debating 
societies,  his  timidity  and  self-depreciation  restrained 
him  from  participating  in  the  discussions  until  his  re- 
sentment of  the  pseudonym  of  "Orator  Mum,"  and  his 
over-indulgence,  while  dining,  in  a  glass  of  punch, 
drove  him  into  a  debate  in  which  he  distinguished 
himself.  He  read  aloud  by  the  hour  to  improve  his 
enunciation,  imitated  the  tones  of  various  orators  he 
had  heard  and  read  the  orations.  Realizing  that  his 
presence  was  not  impressive — for  he  was  short,  slight 
and  ill-proportioned — he  practised  recitations  before 
the  mirror,  studying  gesticulation.  He  studied  oratory 
as  an  art,  and  it  was  an  artist,  as  well  as  a  lawyer,  that 
traveled  back  to  Ireland  in  1775  and  became  a  mem- 


John   Philpot  Curran 

From  a  rare  engraving 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  133 

ber  of  the  bar  of  which  he  was  so  soon  to  become  the 
brightest  ornament  of  a  century,  and  the  sole  rival  of 
Erskine,  among  all  the  forensic  gladiators  of  Great 
Britain. 


II 


It  was  inevitable  that  one  of  such  unusual  eloquence 
should  drift  into  parliament,  and  soon  Curran  became 
a  member  of  the  scintillating  house  of  commons  of 
that  time  where  he  came  into  intimate  association  with 
Flood,  Grattan,  Burgh  and  Yelverton,  and  was  soon 
catalogued  with  them  in  capacity.  While  his  parlia- 
mentary career  was  brilliant  he  necessarily  played  a 
secondary  part  to  Flood  and  Grattan,  and  his  speeches 
while  masterful  and  inspiring,  lose  in  public  interest 
beside  the  more  memorable  orations  delivered  in  the 
courts.  His  first  participation  in  debate  was  in  sup- 
port of  Flood's  measure  of  parliamentary  reform  on 
the  historic  evening  whtn  the  venerable  orator,  dressed 
in  the  miiform  of  the  Volunteers,  and  supported  by 
members  of  that  organization  in  the  gallery,  shocked 
the  more  conservative  of  the  statesmen,  and  Curran's 
fire  and  force  created  a  lively  enthusiasm  among  the 
auditors.  Within  a  few  weeks  he  w^as  engaged  in  an 
acrimonious  exchange  of  compliments  with  Lord 
Clare,  the  renegade,  vdiich  ended  on  the  dueling  field.* 


*  The  duel  between  Curran  and  Clare  grew  out  of  a  debate  to 
which  Lord  Clare  had  invited  the  beautiful  Duchess  of  Rut- 
land and  the  other  ladies  of  the  Castle  circle  to  hear  him  "put 
down  Curran."  The  latter  having  heard  of  the  boast  and  noticing 
the  presence  of  the  Duchess  in  the  gallery  took  advantage  of  a 
doze  into  which  Clare  had  fallen  to  force  the  fighting.  "I  hope," 
he  said,  "I  may  say  a  few  words  on  this  great  subject  without 
disturbing  the  sleep  of  any  right  honorable  gentleman,  and  yet, 


134  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Within  a  year  he  was  attacking  the  pension  list  with 
a  sarcasm  and  satire  quite  as  effective  as  Grattan's  in- 
spired eloquence,  and  henceforth  he  acted  consistently 
with  the  little  band  of  patriots  who  battled  desperately 
against  the  corruption  of  the  Castle  and  the  plan  of 
union.  A  Protestant  himself,  he  joined  Grattan  in 
pleading  for  Catholic  emancipation,  and  upon  the  re- 
call of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  he  solemnly  warned  the  gov- 
ernment that  its  policies  were  tending  toward  insur- 
rection, for  he  foresaw  the  spirit  of  '98.  As  late  as 
1796  he  gave  ardent  support  to  Ponsonby's  plan  for 
parliamentary  reform  which  provided  for  the  grant- 
ing of  civil  rights  to  the  Catholics.  The  boldness  of 
his  attacks  upon  the  corruption  of  the  Castle  may  be 
illustrated  from  the  following  extract  from  one  of  his 
most  notable  parliamentary  speeches : 

"I  rise,"  he  said,  "with  the  deep  concern  and  melan- 
choly hesitation  which  a  man  must  feel  who  does  not  know 
whether  he  is  addressing  an  independent  parHament,  the 
representatives  of  the  people  of  Ireland,  or  whether  he  is 
addressing  the  representatives  of  corruption.  I  rise  to  make 
the  experiment ;  and  I  approach  the  question  with  all  those 
awful  feelings  of  a  man  who  finds  a  dear  friend  pros- 
trate and  wounded  on  the  ground,  and  who  dreads  lest 
the  means  he  may  use  to  recover  him  may  only  show 
that  he  is  dead  and  gone  forever.  I  rise  to  make  an 
experiment  on  the  representatives  of  the  people,  whether 
they  have  abdicated  their  trust,  and  have  become  the 
paltry  representatives  of  Castle  influence.    ...    I  rise 

perhaps,  I  ought  rather  to  envy  than  blame  the  tranquillity  of  the 
right  honorable  gentleman.  I  do  not^  feel  myself  so  happily 
tempered  as  to  be  lulled  to  repose  by  the  storms  that  shake  the 
land.  If  they  invite  rest  to  any,  that  rest  ought  not  to  be  lav- 
ished on  the  guilty  spirit."  In  the  duel  that  resulted  Curran  had 
the  first  shot  without  effect,  and  Clare  took  aim  for  nearly  half 
^  minute  and  missed. 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  135 

in  an  assembly  of  three  hundred  persons,  one  hundred 
of  whom  have  places  or  pensions;  I  rise  in  an  assembly, 
one-third  of  whom  have  their  ears  set  against  the  com- 
plaints of  the  people  and  their  eyes  intently  turned  to 
their  own  interests;  I  rise  before  the  whisperers  of  the 
treasury,  the  bargainers,  the  runners  of  the  Castle ;  I 
address  an  audience  before  whom  was  held  forth  the 
doctrine  that  the  crown  ought  to  use  its  influence  on  this 
house. 

"I  should  not  be  surprised  if  bad  men  of  great  talents 
should  endeavor  to  enslave  a  people ;  but  when  I  see 
folly  uniting  with  vice,  corruption  with  imbecility,  men 
without  talent  attempting  to  overthrow  our  liberty,  my 
indignation  rises  at  the  presumption  and  audacity  of  the 
attempt.  That  such  men  should  creep  into  power  is  a 
fatal  symptom  of  the  constitution ;  the  political,  like  the 
material  body,  when  it  nears  its  dissolution,  often  bursts 
out  in  swarms  of  vermin. 

"In  this  administration  a  place  can  be  found  for  every 
bad  man,  whether  it  be  to  distribute  the  wealth  of  the 
treasury,  to  vote  in  the  house,  to  whisper  and  to  bargain, 
to  stand  at  the  door  and  note  the  entrance  and  exits  of 
members,  to  mark  whether  they  earn  their  wages — 
whether  it  be  for  the  hireling  who  comes  for  his  hire, 
or  for  the  drunken  aide-de-camp  who  staggers  in  a 
brothel ;  nay,  some  of  them  find  their  way  to  the  treas- 
ury bench,  the  political  musicians,  or  hurdy-gurdy  men, 
to  pipe  the  praises  of  the  viceroy." 

Such  denunciations,  however,  could  not  penetrate 
the  hide  of  the  hirelings  of  the  Castle  who  sat  in  the 
house  prepared  to  sell  the  liberties  of  their  country. 
At  length,  discouraged,  disgusted,  foreseeing  the 
shameful  end,  Curran  retired  from  parliament  and 
was  spared  the  humiliation  of  being  a  member  of  the 
assembly  at  the  time  of  its  wholesale  purchase  by  the 
mercenaries  of  William  Pitt.  He  also,  no  doubt,  had 
his  personal  reasons  for  severing  his  connection  witl> 


136  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

public  life.  He  was  too  discriminating  a  critic  not  to 
know  that  his  parliamentary  speeches  were  far  inferior 
to  those  at  the  bar,  and  he  probably  had  enough  of  the 
pride  of  authorship  to  wish  to  appear  before  the  public 
at  his  best.  It  has  been  suggested  that  in  common 
with  the  great  majority  of  forensic  orators  he  was  not 
adapted  to  the  parliamentary  method  of  discussion. 
In  view  of  the  fragments  of  his  speeches  in  the  house 
of  commons  this  can  scarcely  be  said  of  Curran.  There 
are  passages  of  his  speeches  on  the  pension  list  and 
the  Catholic  question  that  bear  the  unmistakable  im- 
print of  genius. 

In  later  years,  in  conversation  with  Charles  Phillips, 
he  gave  his  own  explanation,  which  seems  the  probable 
true  one.  "I  was  a  person,"  he  said,  "attached  to  a 
great  political  party,  whose  leaders  were  men  of  im- 
portance in  the  state,  totally  devoted  to  those  political 
pursuits  from  which  my  mind  was  necessarily  dis- 
tracted by  studies  of  a  different  description.  They 
allotted  me  my  station  in  debate,  which  being  generally 
in  the  rear,  was  seldom  brought  into  action  until  near 
the  close  of  the  engagement.  After  having  toiled 
through  the  Four  Courts  for  the  entire  day,  I  brought 
to  the  house  of  commons  a  person  enfeebled  and  a 
mind  exhausted.  I  was  compelled  to  speak  late  at 
night  and  had  to  rise  early  for  the  judges  in  the  morn- 
ing and  my  efforts  were  consequently  crude ;  and  where 
others  had  the  whole  day  for  the  correction  of  a  speech, 
I  was  left  at  the  mercy  of  inability  or  inattention." 

Notwithstanding  this  self-depreciation  of  the  orator, 
it  is  probable  that  had  he  never  delivered  his  marvelous 
masterpieces  in  the  courts  to  overshadow  the  memory 
of  his  parliamentary  efforts  these  alone  would  have 


JOHN   PHILPOT   CURRAN  137 

been  sufficient  to  have  preserved  his  fame  among  the 
bright  particular  stars  of  Irish  eloquence. 

Ill 

Occasionally  an  advocate  appears  in  a  cause  of  such 
transcendent  importance  to  the  public  that  his  name 
and  genius  are  linked  with  the  cause.  It  was  the  good 
fortune  of  Curran  to  be  the  champion  of  the  succession 
of  patriots  whose  causes  were  the  causes  of  the  nation, 
and  to  stand  forth  in  a  period  of  persecutions  and  op- 
pression as  the  trusted  champion  of — a  People.  At  a 
time  when  the  liberty  of  Ireland  was  expiring,  with 
freedom  of  discussion  prohibited,  the  liberty  of  the 
press  denied,  and  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  sus- 
pended, while  the  miserable  creatures  of  the  Castle 
were  inaugurating  a  reign  of  terror  through  the  con- 
version of  the  courts  into  bloody  shambles,  it  was  the 
privilege  of  Curran  to  stand  defiantly  in  the  very  pres- 
ence of  power  and  to  expose  the  perfidy  of  the  con- 
spiracy against  the  land  of  his  nativity.  The  role  he 
essayed  called  for  more  genius  than  that  of  O'Connell 
on  the  hustings,  and  for  more  intrepidity  than  that  of 
Fitzgerald,  and  more  probity  than  either.  Pleading 
his  causes  in  the  days  of  intimidating  judges  and 
packed  juries,  he  frequently  failed  to  save  his  client 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  hideous  pack  that  hounded 
him,  but  through  his  genius  and  inspired  eloquence  he 
has  pilloried,  for  all  time,  the  enemies  of  the  liberties 
of  his  people. 

Curran  had  reached  his  forty-fourth  year  and  was 
in  the  full  bloom  of  his  superb  genius  when  there  be- 
gan the  series  of  state  trials  which  placed  him  to  the 


138  JHE   IRISH   ORATORS 

fore  as  the  very  voice  and  soul  of  Ireland.  It  was 
at  this  time  that  Archibald  Rowan,  secretary  of  the 
United  Irishmen  of  Dublin,  published  an  address  to 
the  Volunteers  of  Ireland,  boldly  dwelling  upon  the 
dangers  confronting  the  public  security  both  from 
within  and  without  and  calling  upon  them  to  resume 
their  arms  for  the  preservation  of  the  public  tran- 
quillity. This  was  dynamite  to  the  Castle.  He  was 
promptly  arrested  on  the  charge  of  seditious  libel,  and 
it  was  in  his  defense  that  Curran  delivered  the  splendid 
oration  considered  to  be  his  masterpiece. 

This  speech,  and  the  incidents  surrounding  its  de- 
livery, made  a  profound  impression  on  the  country. 
In  the  popular  imagination  the  cause  took  on  a  na- 
tional character.  It  was  not  a  battle  between  an  in- 
dividual and  the  Castle — it  was  a  battle  between  Ire- 
land and  the  English  ministry.  That  the  dignitaries 
of  the  state  so  considered  it  was  evident  in  the  sig- 
nificant presence  of  soldiery  in  the  court  room — placed 
there  to  awe  the  jury  and  intimidate  the  advocate. 
The  court  room  was  thronged  with  people  and  the  sur- 
rounding streets  were  crowded.  Ridiculing  the  idea 
of  sedition  and  proclaiming  Rov/an's  description  of 
conditions  as  his  own,  Curran  defied  the  government 
to  the  delight  of  the  people,  and  paid  tribute  to  the 
Volunteers  in  a  passage  of  brilliant  beauty : 

"You  can  not  but  remember,"  he  said,  "that  at  a  time 
when  we  had  scarcely  a  soldier  for  our  defense,  when 
the  old  and  the  young  were  alarmed  and  terrified  with 
apprehensions  of  a  descent  upon  our  coasts,  that  Prov- 
idence seemed  to  have  worked  a  miracle  in  our  favor. 
You  saw  a  band  of  armed  men  come  forth  at  the  great 
call  of  nature,  of  honor  and  their  country.    You  saw 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  139 

men  of  the  greatest  wealth  and  rank — ^you  saw  every 
class  of  the  community  give  up  its  members,  and  send 
them  armed  into  the  field  to  protect  the  public  and  pri- 
vate tranquillity  of  Ireland.  It  is  impossible  for  any 
man  to  turn  back  to  that  period  without  reviving  those 
sentiments  of  tenderness  and  gratitude  v/hich  then  beat 
in  the  public  bosom ;  to  recollect"  amidst  what  applause, 
what  tears,  what  prayers,  what  benedictions,  they  walked 
forth  amongst  spectators,  agitated  by  the  mingled  sen- 
sations of  terror  and  of  reliance,  of  danger  and  of  pro- 
tection, imploring  the  blessings  of  heaven  upon  their 
heads,  and  its  conquests  upon  their  swords.  That  illus- 
trious, that  adored  and  abused  body  of  men  stood  for- 
ward and  assumed  the  title,  which  I  trust  the  gratitude 
of  their  country  will  never  blot  from  its  history — 'The 
Volunteers  of  Ireland.' " 

In  language  of  classic  purity  he  appealed  to  the  na- 
tional pride  by  making  invidious  comparisons  between 
the  apparent  rights  of  the  Irish  and  the  conceded  rights 
of  the  people  across  the  channel,  reaching  a  climax 
in  an  audacious  invocation  of  the  spirit  of  the  Brit- 
ish law : 

"I  speak  in  the  spirit  of  the  British  law  which  makes 
liberty  commensurate  with  and  inseparable  from  the  Brit- 
ish soil;  which  proclaims  even  to  the  stranger  and  the 
sojourner,  the  moment  he  sets  foot  on  British  earth,  that 
the  ground  on  which  he  treads  is  holy  and  consecrated 
by  the  genius  of  universal  emancipation.  No  matter  in 
v>^hat  language  his  doom  may  have  been  pronounced;  no 
matter  what  complexion  incompatible  with  freedom  an 
Indian  or  an  African  sun  may  have  burned  upon  him ;  no 
matter  in  what  disastrous  battle  his  liberty  may  have 
been  cloven  down ;  no  matter  with  what  solemnities  he 
may  have  been  immolated  upon  the  altar  of  slavery — 
the  moment  he  touches  the  sacred  soil  of  Britain,  the  al- 
tar and  the  god  sink  together  In  the  dust ;  his  soul  walks 
abroad  in  its  own  majesty;  his  body  swells  beyond  the 


140  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

measure  of  his  chains,  that  burst  from  around  him,  and 
he  stands  redeemed,  regenerated  and  disenthralled  by  the 
irresistible  genius  of  universal  emancipation." 

This  lyric  burst  of  eloquence,  delivered  v^dth  the 
glow  of  one  inspired,  so  thrilled  the  spectators  that, 
in  the  very  presence  of  the  frowning  authorities  and 
the  startled  soldiery,  they  broke  into  applause,  and  it 
was  some  time  before  sufficient  order  could  be  restored 
to  permit  the  orator  to  proceed.  Gathering  force  now 
and  assuming  greater  audacity,  Curran  no  longer  de- 
fended his  client ;  he  lectured  the  Castle,  or,  better  still, 
he  took  Ireland  for  his  client  and  in  defending  her 
claim  to  human  rights  he  entered  upon  a  defense  of  the 
liberty  of  the  press  that  was  never  surpassed  by  Er- 
skine  or  Mackintosh.  And  when,  in  a  final  burst  of 
supreme  eloquence,  he  concluded,  the  hostility  of  court 
and  armed  men  was  again  forgotten  and  the  court 
room  rang  with  the  cheers  of  the  people.  As  he  left 
the  room  the  throng  outside,  beside  itself  with  enthu- 
siasm, disregarded  the  importunities  of  the  little  ge- 
nius to  desist  and  literally  picl:ed  him  up  and  carried 
him  to  his  home  in  triumph. 

This  speech,  which  deeply  moved  the  people,  failed 
to  acquit  his  client;  but  a  few  weeks  later,  when  Doc- 
tor William  Brennan  was  prosecuted  on  a  similar 
charge  and  Curran  again  defended,  the  prosecution 
failed. 

The  marvelous  effect  of  Curran's  defense  of  Rowan 
was  not  lost  upon  the  Castle,  and  every  effort  was 
made  through  his  more  timid  friends  to  persuade  him 
to  desert  the  cause  of  his  country  and  ally  himself 
with  the  sycophants  of  the  ministry,  but  the  tempter 
was  turned  aside  with  contempt. 


JOHN    PHTLPOT    CURRAN  141 

In  the  spring  of  the  following  year  Cur  ran  was 
called  upon  to  defend  William  Jackson  on  a  charge 
of  treason.  This  unfortunate  gentleman  had  become 
infatuated  with  the  revolutionary  idea  in  France  and 
returned  to  Ireland  with  a  view  to  determining  the 
feasibility  of  an  armed  invasion  by  the  French.  Un- 
suspecting and  unworldly,  he  fell  in  with  an  informer, 
and  was  betrayed  to  the  authorities.  The  establish- 
ment of  his  guilt  rested  solely  upon  the  evidence  of 
a  single  person  and,  while  two  witnesses  w'ere  nec- 
essary to  convict  in  England  in  cases  of  this  character, 
the  pliant  Irish  courts  ruled  that  in  Ireland  one  would 
do.  This  was  vital  in  that  it  prepared  the  way  for 
the  loose  m.ethods  through  which  the  government  was 
able  to  rid  itself  of  suspects  later  on,  and  Curran  made 
a  vigorous  assault  upon  the  one  rule  in  England  and 
another  in  Ireland.  The  establishment  of  this  rule 
laid  down  the  bars  to  the  "informer,"  that  monster 
of  perversity  who  was  to  become  the  ablest  coadjutor 
of  the  Castle  in  the  scries  of  state  trials  that  were 
to  follow.  The  conviction  of  Jackson  followed  the 
adoption  of  the  rule,  but  Curran,  through  his  fight, 
has  given  to  history  the  shameful  story  of  the  assassin 
methods  of  the  courts  that  tried  and  murdered,  under 
the  forms  of  law,  so  many  of  the  patriots  of  Ireland. 

Late  in  the  year  1797  Curran's  services  as  patriot- 
advocate  were  enlisted  in  behalf  of  Peter  Finnerty, 
editor  of  The  Post,  who  was  charged  with  libeling 
the  government  in  the  person  of  the  viceroy.  The 
alleged  libel  was  in  reality  but  a  plain  statement  of 
the  truth  relative  to  the  trial  and  infamous  execution 
of  William  Orr.  This  unfortunate  man  had  been  tried 
on  the  charge  of  high  treason,  had  been  defended  by 


142  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Curran,  found  guilty  and  executed.  This  trial  and 
execution  probably  has  no  parallel  in  perfidy  in  Irish 
history.  Orr's  life,  previous  to  his  arrest,  had  com- 
manded the  profound  respect  and  affection  of  all  who 
knew  him.  He  was  convicted,  as  usual,  on  the  un- 
corroborated word  of  a  wretched  informer.  The  jury 
had  deliberated  throughout  the  night  when  the  au- 
thorities, fearing  a  failure  of  their  methods  of  in- 
timidation, introduced  liquor  into  the  jury  room  and 
the  death  verdict  was  coaxed  from  drunken  men. 
Upon  regaining  the  use  of  their  faculties  and  learn- 
ing what  they  had  done  the  miserable  jurors  recom- 
mended mercy,  manfully  setting  forth  in  their  petition 
the  shameful  facts.  It  was  to  no  avail.  The  verdict 
of  the  inebriates,  based  upon  the  unsupported  word 
of  a  purchased  informer,  was  carried  out  and  the  name 
of  William  Orr  lengthened  the  list  of  the  Irish  mar- 
tyrs. He  died  protesting  his  innocence.  These  facts 
were  set  forth  by  Finnerty  through  the  columns  of 
his  paper  in  a  severe  remonstrance  to  the  viceroy  of 
Ireland — and  this  was  called  "libel"  by  the  govern- 
ment. Finnerty  was  accordingly  summoned  to  trial. 
Although  Curran  entered  the  court  room  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Finnerty  trial  with  no  idea  of  partici- 
pating and  without  preparation,  his  speech  in  defense 
of  the  editor  was  spirited  and  brilliantly  audacious. 
Realizing  that  the  jury  had  been  picked  by  the  prose- 
cution, he  boldly  proclaimed  his  knowledge  to  the  jury 
in  the  very  beginning.  "You  know  and  we  know," 
he  said,  "upon  what  occasion  you  are  come,  and  by 
whom  you  have  been  chosen;  you  are  come  to  try 
an  accusation  professedly  brought  forward  by  the 
state,  chosen  by  a  sheriff  who  is  appointed  by  our 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  143 

accuser/'  Without  giving  the  prosecution  an  oppor- 
tunity to  recover  from  the  effect  of  the  starthng  but 
true  accusation,  he  plunged  impetuously  into  a  defense 
of  the  article  deemed  libelous  and  pronounced  it  true 
in  all  its  parts.  In  defending  the  liberty  of  the  press 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  charge  that  the  oppressors  of 
Ireland  were  bent  upon  the  suppression  of  a  free  press 
in  Ireland  with  "the  only  printer  in  Ireland  who  dares 
to  speak  for  the  people  in  the  dock."  Thus  challeng- 
ing the  right  of  the  jury  so  selected  to  act,  making 
the  so-called  libel  of  his  client  his  own  and  personally 
vouching  for  its  truth,  he  turned  indignantly  upon  the 
jurors  with  the  scornful  challenge: 

"Upright  and  honest  jurors,  find  a  civil  and  obliging 
verdict  against  the  printer.  And  when  you  have  done 
so  march  through  the  ranks  of  3'Our  fellow  citizens  to 
your  own  homes,  and  bear  their  looks  as  you  pass  along; 
retire  to  the  bosoms  of  your  families  and  your  children, 
and  when  you  are  presiding  over  the  morality  of  the  par- 
ental board,  tell  those  infants  who  are  to  be  the  future 
men  of  Ireland  the  history  of  this  day.  Form  their  young 
minds  by  your  precepts,  and  confirm  those  precepts  by 
your  example ;  teach  them  how  discreetly  allegiance  may 
be  perjured  on  the  table,  or  loyalty  be  forsworn  in  the 
jury  box ;  and  when  you  have  done  so,  tell  them  the  story 
of  Orr;  tell  them  of  his  captivity,  of  his  children,  of  his 
crime,  of  his  hopes  and  disappointments,  of  his  courage 
and  of  his  death;  and  when  you  find  your  little  hearers 
hanging  upon  your  lips,  when  you  see  their  young  eyes 
overflow  with  sympathy  and  sorrow  and  their  young 
hearts  bursting  with  the  pangs  of  anticipated  orphanage, 
tell  them  that  you  had  the  boldness  and  the  justice  to 
stigmatize  the  monster  who  had  dared  to  publish  the 


Declaring  that  the   government  proposed  that   an 


144  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Irish  jury  should  say  to  the  world  in  their  verdict 
that  the  government  of  Ireland  was  wise  and  merci- 
ful and  the  people  prosperous  and  happy,  he  indig- 
nantly demanded: 

"Merciful  God,  what  is  the  state  of  Ireland,  and  where 
will  you  find  the  wretched  inhabitant  of  this  land?  You 
will  find  him  perhaps  in  gaol,  the  only  place  of  security, 
I  had  almost  said  of  ordinary  habitation;  you  may  see 
him  flying  by  the  conflagration  of  his  dwelling;  or  you 
may  find  his  bones  bleaching  on  the  green  fields  of  the 
country;  or  he  may  be  found  tossing  upon  the  surface 
of  the  ocean,  and  mingling  his  groans  with  those  tem- 
pests, less  savage  than  his  persecutors,  that  drift  him  to 
a  returnless  distance  from  his  family  and  his  home.  And 
yet,  with  these  facts  ringing  in  the  ears  and  staring  in 
the  faces  of  the  prosecutors,  you  are  called  upon  to  say 
on  your  oaths  that  these  facts  do  not  exist.  You  are 
called  upon  in  defiance  of  shame,  of  truth,  of  honor,  to 
deny  the  suffering  under  which  you  groan,  and  to  flatter 
the  persecution  that  tramples  you  under  foot." 

Thus,  in  the  Finnerty  case,  Curran  lost  sight  of  his 
client  in  his  country ;  or  rather,  he  plead  for  his  coun- 
try through  his  client.  Thus  through  the  exaltation 
of  his  genius  he  raised  the  private  issue  to  a  public 
cause,  and  made  the  cowardly  attempt  of  the  oppressor 
to  suppress  an  humble  expose  of  the  wretched  mis- 
government  of  Ireland  a  peg  on  which  to  hang  an 
excoriation  of  such  brilliancy  as  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world  and  hold  it  for  a  century.  The  ver- 
dict was  against  Finnerty,  as  was  prearranged,  but  the 
viceroy  would  gladly  have  exchanged  an  unfavorable 
verdict  for  the  suppression  of  Curran's  tremendous 
indictment. 

This  takes  us  up  to  the  fateful  year  of  '98,  the  most 


.  JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  145 

eventful  in  the  career  of  Curran,  and  perhaps  the  most 
tragic  in  the  history  of  Ireland.  In  January  of  that 
year  the  notorious  state  trials  commenced  in  the  at- 
tempt to  convict  Patrick  Finney  and  fifteen  others  on 
a  charge  of  treason  and  upon  the  uncorroborated  evi- 
dence of  a  moral  monster  named  James  O'Brien. 
Confronted,  as  usual,  with  a  hostile  jury,  Curran 
realized  that  the  lives  of  his  clients  depended  upon 
the  demolishment  of  the  testimony  of  the  informer. 
His  cross-examination  of  O'Brien  v^as  a  classic.  As- 
suming an  attitude  of  respect  and  admiration,  he  threw 
the  witness  off  his  guard,  won  his  confidence  and  step 
by  step  persuaded  him  through  his  admissions  and 
boasting  to  expose  his  hidden  baseness  to  the  jury. 
It  was  upon  the  ineffable  moral  turpitude  of  the  pros- 
ecuting witness  that  the  advocate  based  his  defense. 
His  denunciation  of  this  informer  was  the  most  fe- 
rocious, perhaps,  that  ever  fell  from  his  lips : 

"Have  you  any  doubt,"  he  asked,  "that  it  is  the  object 
of  O'Brien  to  take  down  the  prisoner  for  the  reward 
that  follows?  Have  you  not  seen  with  what  more  than 
instinctive  keenness  this  bloodhound  has  pursued  his  vic- 
tim? How  he  has  kept  him  in  view  from  place  to  place 
until  he  hunts  him  through  the  avenues  of  the  court, 
to  where  the  unhappy  man  stands  now,  hopeless  of  all 
succor  save  that  which  your  verdict  shall  afford  ?  I  have 
heard  of  assassination  by  sword,  by  pistol  and  by  dag- 
ger, but  here  is  a  wretch  who  would  dip  the  evangelists 
in  blood.  If  he  thinks  he  has  not  sworn  his  victim  to 
death,  he  is  ready  to  swear  without  mercy  and  without 
end ;  but  oh,  do  not,  I  conjure  you,  suffer  him  to  take 
an  oath ;  the  arm  of  the  murderer  should  not  pollute  the 
purity  of  the  gospel;  and  if  he  will  swear,  let  it  be  on 
the  knife,  the  proper  symbol  of  his  profession." 


146  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Tradition  has  it  that  the  effect  of  Curran's  philippic 
upon  spectators,  the  court  and  its  miserable  object 
was  tremendous.  As  he  analyzed  the  evidence,  re- 
vealing the  perjury  in  every  line,  he  returned  time  and 
again  to  the  assault  until  O'Brien,  cowering  in  his  seat, 
was  in  deadly  fear  of  his  life.  Even  the  packed  jury 
did  not  have  the  temerity  to  authorize  a  murder  on 
the  evidence  of  an  informer  who  was  as  stupid  as  he 
was  infamous,  and  Finney  was  promptly  acquitted. 
The  informer  became  the  object  of  general  detesta- 
tion, and  when  a  little  later  he  was  convicted  of  mur- 
der his  execution  was  accompanied  by  horrible  shouts 
and  jeers  of  exultation. 

After  the  rising  of  '98,  in  which  as  many  as  fifty 
thousand  people  lost  their  lives,  the  fury  and  fear  of 
the  alien  rulers  led  to  a  veritable  reign  of  terror  in 
the  courts,  and  into  the  maelstrom  of  passion  Curran 
w^as  instantly  plunged.  The  leaders  of  the  rising  who 
survived  were  foredoomed  to  execution  through 
packed  juries  and  purchased  testimony.  It  was  with 
a  clear  comprehension  of  the  futility  of  his  efforts 
that  Curran  stepped  forward  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the 
battle  in  defense  of  the  patriots.  The  intimidation 
of  Castle  and  court,  the  manufacture  of  evidence,  the 
recognition  of  the  informer,  the  packing  of  juries — 
all  this  was  known  to  him.  With  Grattan  and  Plunk- 
ett  hostile  to  the  revolutionists  and  with  O'Connell 
still  a  student  and  in  the  Kerry  hills,  John  Philpot 
Curran  became  the  man  of  the  hour. 

The  first  victims  to  be  summoned  to  their  certain 
death  were  Henry  and  John  Sheares,  both  highly  re- 
spected members  of  the  Dublin  bar.  The  scene  in  the 
court  room  was  dramatic,  for  the  defendants  battling 


.    JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  147 

for  their  lives  were  not  ordinary  culprits  but  gentle- 
men of  social  and  professional  brilliance.  All  classes 
were  represented  among  the  fascinated  spectators. 
The  examination  of  witnesses  had  proceeded  through- 
out the  day,  the  evidence  against  the  accused  accumu- 
lating hour  by  hour,  until  the  shades  of  evening  cam.e 
and  the  flickering  candlelight  cast  its  grotesque  shad- 
ows on  the  drawn  tense  faces  of  the  people.  The  par- 
ticipants in  this  dramatic  scene  had  not  been  permitted 
one  moment's  relaxation.  It  was  midnight  when  Cur- 
ran,  weary  from  the  protracted  struggle,  rose  to  make 
his  closing  plea  for  the  two  defendants.  There  w^as 
a  movement  of  expectation  in  the  gallery  where  the 
children  of  poverty,  some  of  whom  had  figured  se- 
cretly in  the  insurrection,  leaned  forward  to  hear. 

"My  lords,"  Curran  began,  "before  I  address  you  or 
the  jury  I  would  wish  to  make  one  preliminary  observa- 
tion. It  may  be  an  observation  only — it  may  be  a  re- 
quest. For  myself,  I  am  indifferent;  but  I  feel  I  am 
now  unequal  to  the  duty — I  am  sinking  under  the  weight 
of  it.  We  all  know  the  character  of  the  jury:  the  in- 
terval of  their  separation  must  be  short,  if  it  should  be 
deemed  necessary  to  separate  them.  I  protest  I  have 
sunk  under  this  trial.  If  I  must  go  on,  the  court  must 
bear  with  me;  the  jury  may  also  bear  with  me;  and  I 
will  go  on  until  I  sink ;  but  sitting  for  sixteen  hours,  with 
only  twenty  minutes  interval  in  these  times,  I  should  hope 
it  would  not  be  thought  an  obtrusive  request  to  ask  for 
a  few  hours  interval  for  repose." 

The  orator  paused  and  waited — but  not  for  long. 
The  Castle  was  hungry  for  its  prey.  The  gallows 
were  ready — why  wait?  The  attorney-general  refused 
to  agree  on  the  ground  that  a  great  concession  had 


148  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

alread}^  been  shown  the  defense.  Pulhng  himself  to- 
gether, fired  by  the  unfairness  of  the  remark,  Cur  ran 
began  with  a  melancholy  smile : 

"Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  it  seems  that  much  has  been 
conceded  to  us.  God  help  us.  I  do  not  know  what  has 
been  conceded  to  me — if  so  insignificant  a  person  may 
have  extorted  that  remark.  Perhaps  it  is  a  concession 
that  I  am  allowed  to  rise  in  such  a  state  of  mind  and 
body,  of  collapse  and  deprivation,  as  to  feel  but  a  little 
spark  of  indignation  raised  by  the  remark  that  much  has 
been  conceded  to  the  counsel  for  the  defense.  Almighty 
and  merciful  God,  who  lookest  down  upon  us,  what  are 
the  times  to  which  we  are  reserved,  w^ien  we  are  told 
that  much  has  been  conceded  to  prisoners  who  are  put 
upon  their  trial  at  a  moment  like  this — that  public  con- 
venience can  not  spare  a  respite  of  a  few  hours  to  those 
who  are  accused  for  their  lives ;  and  that  much  has  been 
conceded  to  the  poor  advocate  ^Imost  exhausted  in  the 
poor  remark  which  he  has  endeavored  to  make  upon  it." 

Summoning  all  the  latent  powers  within  him,  he 
then  launched  forth  into  one  of  the  most  moving  and 
eloquent  of  his  speeches  at  the  bar,  albeit  the  evidence 
was  all  against  him.  He  could  only  appeal  to  the 
heart  of  a  jury  that  had  been  selected  with  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  prosecution,  but  he  appealed  to  them  with 
all  the  fervor  of  his  nature,  and  plead  with  them  not 
to  encourage  the  appetite  for  blood  already  manifest 
in  the  hounds  of  the  viceroy:  and  he  could  denounce 
the  inevitable  informer — this  time  because  of  his  in- 
fidelity and  his  consequent  disregard  for  an  oath.  At 
times  he  seemed  upon  the  verge  of  a  collapse.  His 
voice  sank  almost  to  a  whisper.  His  step  faltered. 
Then  once  more  his  spirit  spurred  to  mighty  action 
the  splendid  genius,  and  the  crowd  in  the  court  room 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  149 

Vv'as  momentarily  swayed  by  an  eloquence  that  was 
scarcely  less  than  superhuman.  But  all  in  vain.  The 
jury  retired  in  the  morning,  found  the  brothers  guilty, 
and  both  were  condemned. 

Five  days  went  by  and  Curran  was  again  in  court 
defending  John  McCann  against  the  evidence  of  the 
wretched  informer,  Thomas  Reynolds,  to  whom  the 
orator  has  given  an  immortality  of  infamy.  The  bril- 
liancy and  startling  audacity  of  Curran's  excoriation 
of  Reynolds,  who  appears  to  have  been  a  special  fa- 
vorite of  the  Castle,  inspired  the  government  to  order 
the  suppression  of  the  orator's  speech.  McCann  was 
convicted.  Three  days  later  Curran  w^as  again  in  court 
pleading  for  the  life  of  William  Byrne.  The  slimy 
Reynolds  again  figured  as  the  prosecuting  witness,  and 
again  the  government  prevented  the  publication  of 
Currants  speech.  But  when,  three  days  afterward, 
Curran  appeared  in  defense  of  Oliver  Bond,  the  Cas- 
tle found  that  suppression  had  intensified  the  interest 
of  the  public  in  Curran's  speeches.  It  was  the  evi- 
dent intention  at  this  time  to  frighten  the  advocate 
into  a  less  obnoxious  course  of  argument.  Time  and 
again  in  the  course  of  his  speech  he  was  interrupted 
by  men  stationed  in  the  court  room  for  the  purpose. 
Not  content  wuth  this  outrage,  the  hirelings  of  the 
Castle  resorted  to  its  armed  men,  who  stood  about  in 
threatening  attitude,  staring  at  the  speaker.  Finally 
there  was  a  rattling  of  musketry  and  an  ominous  move- 
ment of  the  soldiers  in  protest  against  some  phase  of 
the  speech.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  Curran 
paused,  and  w^alking  directly  upon  the  uniformed  ruf- 
fians, he  looked  them  squarely  and  sternly  in  the  eye, 
shook  his  clenched  fist  in  their  faces,  and  electrified 


150  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

every  decent  man  in  the  room  with  the  thrilling  ex- 
clamation :  "You  may  assassinate,  you  shall  not  in- 
timidate me."  Just  what  the  expression  was  that  thus 
aroused  the  protest  of  the  uniformed  scullions  of  the 
Castle  the  record  does  not  show;  but  in  view  of  the 
honors  reserved  for  Reynolds  by  the  English  govern- 
ment, it  may  have  been  the  following,  indicative  of 
the  manner  in  which  Cur  ran  threw  himself  into  the 
defense  of  the  men  of  '9S: 

"Are  you  prepared,"  he  asked,  "in  a  case  of  life  and 
death,  of  honor  and  of  infamy,  to  credit  a  vile  informer, 
the  perjurer  of  a  hundred  oaths — a  wretch  whom  honor, 
pride  or  religion  could  not  bind?  The  forsaken  prosti- 
tute of  every  vice  calls  upon  you  with  one  breath  to  blast 
the  memory  of  the  dead  and  to  blight  the  character  of 
the  living.  Do  you  think  Reynolds  to  be  a  villain?  It 
is  true  he  dresses  like  a  gentleman ;  and  the  confident 
expression  of  his  countenance  and  the  dry  tones  of  his 
voice  savor  strong  of  growing  authority.  He  measures 
his  value  by  the  coffins  of  his  victims;  and,  in  the  field 
of  evidence,  appreciates  his  fame  as  the  Indian  warrior 
does  his  fight — by  the  number  of  scalps  with  which  he 
can  swell  his  triumphs.  He  has  promised  and  betrayed 
— he  has  sworn  and  forsworn ;  and  whether  his  soul  goes 
to  heaven  or  to  hell  he  seems  altogether  indifferent,  as 
he  tells  you  that  he  has  established  an  interest  in  both.'* 

In  common  with  all  the  other  victims  of  the  terror- 
ism of  '98,  Bond  was  convicted,  but  died  of  apoplexy 
before  the  hangman  could  do  his  work. 

Thus  was  the  time  of  Curran  passed  during  the 
whole  of  that  melancholy  year.  Among  all  the  great 
lawyers  of  the  Dublin  bar  he  stood  out,  distinct  and 
alone,  looming  above  the  rest  like  a  mountain  among 
the  foothills,  the  beloved  and  admired  patriot  pleader 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  151 

of  the  heroes.  During  these  trials  his  Hfe  was  in  con- 
stant danger.  A  government  that  would  countenance 
a  Reynolds  would  not  be  above  the  employment  of 
an  assassin;  and  the  Bonds  and  McCanns  were  of  but 
little  consequence  to  the  Castle  compared  to  the  colossal 
genius  whose  eloquence  constitutes  the  most  damning 
indictment  of  the  time.  Almost  daily  threatened  with 
violence  by  anonymous  letters  handed  him  on  his  way 
to  court,  his  footsteps  dogged  by  hired  ruffians,  his 
reputation  assailed  by  the  character  assassins  of  the 
Castle,  he  persevered  in  his  patriotic  course  until  the 
government  seriously  considered  proceedings  against 
him  in  the  courts — which  was  another  way  of  plan- 
ning his  assassination.  Fortunately,  however,  the 
marvelous  eloquence  and  commanding  genius  of  Cur- 
ran  lifted  his  renown  far  beyond  the  little  green  isle, 
and  his  persecution  would  have  reacted  fatally  upon 
the  Castle,  and  the  plan  was  abandoned.  The  effect 
of  these  trials  upon  Curran,  however,  was  extremely 
depressing.  The  fortunes  of  his  country  were  at  so 
low  an  ebb  that  he  contemplated  leaving  it  forever. 
His  health  had  suffered  with  his  spirits  and  he  was 
mentally  exhausted.  Broken,  disheartened  and  inef- 
fably sad,  he  went  over  to  England  for  rest.  With 
the  consummation  of  the  union,  a  little  later,  he  aban- 
doned all  hope  for  his  native  isle  and  never  ceased  to 
regret  the  passing  of  the  Volunteers,  whose  services 
he  always  thought  might  have  prevented  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  parliament.  But  the  memories  of  Erin, 
both  grave  and  gay,  beckoned  him  back  home;  and 
well  it  was,  for  his  genius  had  yet  other  work  to  do 
in  Ireland. 

It  is  significant  of  Curran's  claim  upon  the  lasting 


152  JHE    IRISH    ORATORS 

gratitude  and  affection  of  his  race  that  his  brilliant  ad- 
vocacy should  have  been  exerted  In  behalf  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,  against  the  property 
of  whom  the  government  had  the  temerity  to  move 
after  the  death  of  their  heroic  father,  and  that  Cur- 
ran  persisted  until  the  end  in  a  desperate  effort  to 
save  Wolfe  Tone.  Illegally  court-martialed  and  sen- 
tenced to  die  the  most  Ignominious  of  deaths,  with 
the  government  unrelenting  in  its  demand  for  blood, 
and  the  people  stunned  into  apathy  by  the  apparent 
hopelessness  of  the  situation.  It  w^as  Curran  who 
fought  and  fought  almost  alone  until  the  end.  His 
one  hope  was  that  he  might  prevail  upon  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench  to  assert  its  jurisdiction  and  delay 
thereby  the  execution  of  the  sentence;  that  in  the 
meanwhile  France  might  threaten  reprisals  In  the  event 
of  Tone's  death ;  and  that  the  case  might  be  lifted  from 
the  sordid  criminal  status  it  held  to  one  of  political 
significance.  The  day  dawned  for  the  execution. 
Early  In  the  morning  Curran  appeared  In  the  court 
room  leading  the  aged  father  of  the  condemned. 
Lord  Kilwarden,  one  of  the  purest  of  Irish  jurists 
upon  the  bench,  promptly  issued  a  habeas  corpus 
order  on  the  motion  of  the  advocate,  yAio  laid  stress 
upon  the  fact  that  the  uniform  of  a  French  offi- 
cer, which  Tone  wore,  together  with  the  fact  that 
he  held  no  comxmission  from  his  majesty,  protected 
him  from  death  upon  the  scaffold.  The  utter  con- 
tempt of  the  orders  of  the  court  on  the  part  of  the 
military  authorities  aroused  the  Ire  of  Kilwarden,  who 
for  the  second  time  ordered  the  sheriff  to  take  the 
body  of  Tone  into  custody  and  to  show  the  order  of 
the  court  to  General  Craig.     The  official  hurried  to 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  153 

the  performance  of  his  duty  while  the  justice,  the 
father  and  Curran  anxiously  awaited  his  return.  At 
length  the  sheriff  reported  that  he  had  again  been  pos- 
itively refused  admittance  to  the  barracks,  but  had  been 
informed  that  the  prisoner  had  wounded  himself  with 
a  knife.  This  closes  the  story.  Tone  lingered  several 
days  and  died  in  prison. 

After  the  destruction  of  the  legislative  independence 
of  his  country  Curran  made  no  concealment  of  his 
chagrin,  but  he  declined  to  enter  into  any  organized 
effort  to  bring  about  the  repeal  of  the  union.  The 
period  of  the  state  trials  was  for  the  most  part  over, 
but  the  services  of  a  patriot-advocate  to  plead  the  cause 
of  Ireland  in  the  courts  was  none  the  less  needed.  The 
next  three  years  found  him  engaged  in  two  celebrated 
suits  in  which  he  was  enabled  to  plead  the  cause  of 
Ireland  through  that  of  his  clients. 

The  first  of  these,  in  1802,  was  the  civil  suit  of 
John  Hervey  against  Charles  Henry  Sirr,  the  town 
marshal  of  Dublin,  for  false  imprisonment.  Curran's 
masterful  argument  in  behalf  of  the  plaintiff,  expos- 
ing the  tyranny  of  English  misrule  in  Ireland,  was 
addressed  directly  to  the  English  people,  and  not  with- 
out effect.  The  case  of  Hervey  was  a  peculiarly  ag- 
gravated one.  He  had  been  persistently  persecuted  by 
some  of  the  petty  officials  who  were  pandering  to  the 
Castle  and  this  systematic  persecution,  extending  over 
a  long  period,  had  culminated  in  his  incarceration  with- 
out even  the  semblance  of  a  legitimate  excuse.  The 
jury  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  advocate  and  brought 
in  a  verdict  Vvdiich,  while  small,  was  sufficient  to  serve 
the  purpose  Curran  had  in  view.  The  startling  reve- 
lations of  the  case  made  a  profound  impression  across 


154  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

the  channel.  Even  the  Edinburg  Review,  in  a  critical 
study  of  Curran's  speeches  in  1808,  declared  that  *'the 
facts  stated  in  this  (Curran's)  speech  are  such  as  can 
not  be  perused  without  the  utmost  horror  and  the  most 
lively  indignation;  and  are  calculated  indeed  to  give 
such  an  impression  of  the  outrageous  abuses  that  were 
then  familiar  in  that  unhappy  country  that  we  should 
hesitate  about  the  propriety  of  giving  any  further  no- 
toriety to  the  accusation  if  we  had  not  seen,  from 
the  abstract  of  the  record  subjoined  to  the  speech,  that 
it  received  the  sanction  of  the  jury  who,  in  spite  of 
the  high  place  and  the  terrible  influence  of  the  defend- 
ant, yet  found  a  verdict  of  damages  for  the  plaintiff." 

A  little  later,  in  the  celebrated  cause  of  the  King  vs. 
Justice  Johnson,  Curran  had  another  opportunity  to 
drive  home  to  the  English  people  the  injustices  habitu- 
ally practised  by  their  representatives  upon  the  Irish 
race.  Incidental  to  the  insurrection  of  1803,  Justice 
Johnson  wrote  a  letter  condemnatory  of  the  Irish  gov- 
ernment, which  was  published  in  England  and  the 
amazing  attempt  was  made,  through  a  forced  inter- 
pretation of  the  new  act  of  parliament,  to  drag  the 
writer  from  his  home  and  friends  for  trial  in  Eng- 
land. This  unutterable  outrage  was  stubbornly  and 
brilliantly  contested  by  Curran  in  one  of  the  most  mas- 
terful of  his  orations. 

This  was  the  last  great  national  cause  in  which  he 
participated  and  soon  afterward,  on  the  death  of  Pitt 
and  the  inception  into  power  of  the  Whigs,  with  whom 
he  had  affiliated  with  Grattan,  he  was  appointed  mas- 
ter of  the  rolls — and  his  brilliant  public  career  was 
over. 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  155 

IV 

The  years  intervening  between  Curran's  appoint- 
ment and  his  death  were  marked  by  a  gradual  decline 
of  power.  More  and  more  he  began  to  drift,  seek- 
ing diversion  in  society,  reserving  his  brilliancy  for 
the  dinner  table,  and  this  brings  us  to  another  Curran 
— the  clever  wit,  the  boon  companion. 

During  the  whole  of  his  life  Curran  was  a  social 
genius.  In  early  life  he  had  been  one  of  the  moving 
spirits  of  the  celebrated  order  of  Saint  Patrick,  or 
*'Monks  of  the  Screw" — a  society  consisting  of  men 
of  high  order  of  intellect,  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  con- 
viviality. These  brilliant  men  met  every  Saturday 
evening  during  the  lav/  term  in  Saint  Kevin  Street, 
Dublin,  and  frequently  at  Curran's  country  home, 
which  he  called  The  Priory.  The  rooms  in  Dublin 
were  furnished  in  a  mionkish  fashion  and  the  mem- 
bers appeared  in  the  habit  of  the  order,  a  black  tabinet 
domino.  Here  met  and  mingled  such  men  as  Curran, 
Lord  Avonmore,  one  of  the  finest  scholars  of  his  day; 
the  Marquis  of  Townsend;  Lord  Mornington,  the  com- 
poser; Grattan  and  Henry  Flood,  the  eloquent  Hussey 
Burgh  and  the  lamented  Kilwarden — the  very  full 
flower  of  Irish  genius. 

During  the  greater  part  of  "Curran's  life  his  beau- 
tiful home.  The  Priory,  was  a  Mecca  for  the  most 
brilliant  men  of  the  times.  It  was  the  special  delight 
of  the  orator  to  gather  about  his  board  the  most  prom- 
ising of  the  young  men  of  the  country.  Of  his  life 
here  we  have  some  fascinating  pictures  from  the  rec- 
ollections of  Charles  Phillips,  the  orator,  who  was  a 


156  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

frequent  guest.  "Never  shall  I  forget  my  sensations 
when  I  first  caught  ghmpse  of  the  little  man  through 
the  vista  of  the  avenue,"  he  writes.  "There  he  was, 
as  a  thousand  times  afterward  I  saw  him,  in  a  dress 
which  you  would  have  imagined  he  had  borrowed  from 
his  tipstaff — his  hands  on  his  sides,  his  face  almost 
parallel  with  the  horizon — his  under  lip  protruded." 
The  heart  of  Curran  has  been  shown  us  through  these 
recollections,  and  we  are  permitted  to  see  him  in  all 
his  moods — for  he  was  a  man  of  moods  and  passed 
from  the  very  exaltation  of  happiness  to  the  most  dis- 
mal melancholy  within  an  hour.  It  was  not  unusual 
for  him,  after  having  dazzled  a  brilliant  company  far 
into  the  night  with  his  wit  and  eloquence,  to  wander 
out  alone,  or  with  a  single  companion,  into  the  ex- 
quisite gardens  of  The  Priory,  where  he  would  ramble 
until  dawn,  lost  in  the  most  gloomy  reflections.  Thus 
in  his  life,  as  in  his  speeches,  tears  and  laughter  were 
close  together.  While  visiting  the  cottage  of  Robert 
Burns  and  observing  a  drunken  man,  he  burst  into 
tears.  We  have  a  picture  of  him  on  board  a  packet 
reading  the  pathetic  story  of  Clarissa  Harlowe  with 
the  tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks.  He  was  never 
able  to  read  The  Sorrows  of  Werther  with  dry  eyes. 
His  social  triumphs,  however,  were  not  confined 
to  Dublin,  for  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  Lon- 
don, where  the  most  exclusive  and  brilliant  houses 
were  honored  by  his  presence,  and  here  he  came 
into  contact  with  the  great  minds  of  the  literary, 
professional  and  political  worlds.  It  was  at  Hol- 
land House  that  Lord  Byron  first  met  him.  "He 
beats  everybody,"  declared  the  poet.  "His  imag- 
ination is  beyond  the  human  and  his  humor  perfect. 


JOHN    PHILPOT   CURRAN  157 

He  has  fifty  faces  and  twice  as  many  voices  when  he 
mimics."  And  on  another  occasion  Byron  wrote: 
"The  riches  of  his  Irish  imagination  were  exhaustless. 
I  have  heard  that  man  speak  more  poetry  than  I  have 
ever  written,  though  I  saw  him  seldom.*'  Apropos 
of  the  "fifty  faces,"  Lawrence,  the  artist,  after  seeing 
him  in  one  of  his  rare  moments  of  animation,  ex- 
claimed :  "I  have  never  painted  your  portrait  at  all." 
We  have  it  from  Doctor  Birkbeck,  who  roomed  with 
him  in  Paris  for  five  weeks,  that  during  that  time 
there  were  not  five  consecutive  minutes  within  which 
Curran  could  not  make  them  both  laugh  and  cry. 
Home  Tooke,  who  frequently  had  an  opportunity  to 
compare  Curran  with  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan,  de- 
scribed them.  "Sheridan's  wit  was  like  steel,"  he 
wrote,  "highly  polished  and  sharpened  for  display  and 
use,  while  Curran's  was  a  mine  of  virgin  gold,  inces- 
santly crumbling  away  from  its  own  richness."  This 
suggests  Byron's  comparison  of  Curran  with  Lord 
Erskine,  the  only  forensic  orator  in  the  British  Isles 
who  rose  to  the  dignity  of  a  rival : 

"There  also  were  two  wits  by  acclamation, 
Longbow  from  Ireland,  Strongbow  from  the  Tweed, 
Both  lawyers,  and  both  men  of  education ; 
But  Strongbow's  wit  was  of  more  polished  breed: 
Longbow  was  richer  in  imagination. 
As  beautiful  and  bounding  as  a  steed, 
But  sometimes  stumbling  over  a  potato. 
While  Strongbow's  best  things  might  have  come   from 
Cato. 

"Strongbow  was  like  a  new-tuned  harpsichord. 
But  Longbow  wild  as  an  ^olian  harp, 
With  which  the  winds  of  heaven  can  claim  accord, 
And  make  a  music  either  flat  or  sharp. 


158  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Of  Strongbow's  talk  you  would  not  change  a  word: 
At  Longbow's  phrases  you  might  sometimes  carp. 
Both  wits — one  born  so,  and  the  other  bred, 
His  by  the  heart — his  rival  by  the  head." 

Apropos  of  the  comparison  between  Cur  ran  and  Er- 
skine,  an  interesting  story  is  told  of  their  meeting  at 
a  dinner  at  Carlton  House,  London.  The  royal  host 
having  turned  the  conversation  to  the  profession  of 
his  brilliant  guests,  Lord  Erskine  said:  "No  man  in 
ithe  land  need  be  ashamed  to  belong  to  the  legal  pro- 
fession. For  my  part,  of  a  noble  family  myself,  I 
feel  no  degradation  in  practising  it — it  has  added  not 
only  to  my  wealth,  but  to  my  dignity,"  Curran  main- 
tained a  modest  silence  until  the  host,  observing  it, 
asked  for  his  opinion.  "Lord  Erskine,"  he  replied, 
"has  so  eloquently  described  all  the  advantages  to  be 
derived  from  his  profession  that  I  hardly  thought  my 
opinion  worth  adding.  But  perhaps  it  is — perhaps  I 
am  a  better  practical  instance  of  its  advantages  than 
his  lordship.  He  was  ennobled  by  birth  before  he 
came  to  it,  but  it  has" — with  a  bow  to  the  host — "in 
my  person  raised  the  son  of  a  peasant  to  the  table  of 
his  prince." 

It  seems  that  Curran  did  not  always  fall  down  and 
worship  all  the  English  celebrities  with  whom  he  came 
in  contact.  He  admired  Sheridan,  and  looked  upon 
Charles  James  Fox  with  something  akin  to  awe.  Of 
Doctor  Johnson  he  entertained  but  a  poor  opinion. 
"Sir,"  he  once  said,  "he  was  intolerant — an  intolerable 
dogmatist — in  learning,  a  pedant — in  religion,  a  bigot 
— in  manners,  a  savage — and  in  politics,  a  slave." 
Though  very  fond  of  Byron,  he  was  disgusted  with 
the  poet's  bathetic  lines  to  his  wife.    "Here  is  a  man," 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  159 

he  said,  "who  first  weeps  over  his  wife  and  then  dries 
his  eyes  on  the  pubHc." 

Toward  the  close  of  his  Hfe  he  entertained  an  am- 
bition for  a  seat  in  the  British  house  of  commons, 
and  in  1812  he  stood  for  Newry,  but  after  six  days 
in  the  field  he  retired  from  the  contest.  The  following 
year  his  health  began  to  fail  rapidly  and  he  resigned 
his  position  and  went  over  to  Paris  in  the  hope  of 
reviving  his  spirits.  A  large  part  of  the  next  three 
years  were  spent  in  London  or  Paris,  and  he  spoke 
frequently  at  public  dinners,  but  the  old  brilliancy 
was  rapidly  failing.  While  dining  at  the  table  of 
Tom  Moore,  in  the  spring  of  1817,  he  suffered  a 
slight  stroke.  He  lingered  through  the  summer,  but 
on  October  fourteenth  his  eloquent  tongue  was  forever 
silent.  The  funeral  was  private.  Daniel  O'Connell 
canceled  an  engagement  on  the  continent  to  pay  his 
respects  along  with  Charles  Phillips,  the  orator;  Tom 
Moore,  the  poet,  and  Finnerty,  the  publisher,  whose 
name  has  been  saved  from  oblivion  by  the  genius  of 
the  advocate  who  plead  his  cause. 

V 

The  Irish  race  has  produced  greater  statesmen,  more 
profound  lawyers,  and  possibly  more  ardent  patriots, 
but  it  has  not  given  to  the  world  a  greater  orator  than 
John  Philpot  Curran.  The  verdict  of  his  contempo- 
raries is  overwhelming  on  that  point.  His  published 
speeches,  unsatisfactorily  reported  and  never  revised, 
are  corroborative  evidence  of  his  marvelous  eloquence. 
It  is  but  fair  to  his  fame  to  say  that  he  never  gave 
his  consent  to  the  publication  of  his  orations,  and  that 
after  their  publication  he  offered  two  thousand  five 


160  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

hundred  dollars  for  their  suppression.  No  doubt  a  re- 
vision would  have  corrected  many  of  the  faults  now 
ascribed  to  them.  Some  of  these  faults  wxre  due  to 
the  limitations  of  the  reporter,  and  some  errors  in 
taste  no  doubt  grew  out  of  the  trying  circumstances 
under  which  they  were  delivered.  They  were  not 
scholastic  lectures  laboriously  written  in  the  calm  se- 
clusion of  the  closet  to  please  fastidious  ears,  but  were 
necessarily  extemporaneous  effusions  spoken  in  the 
white  heat  of  battle  in  which  the  lives  of  men  were 
at  stake. 

It  is  significant  that  whatever  position  he  attained 
among  his  contemporaries  was  not  due  to  physical  at- 
tractions. He  could  not  awe  as  Chatham  could  by  his 
mere  presence.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  a  man  of 
insignificant  physical  proportions,  short  and  with  the 
form  of  a  youth,  and  naturally  ungraceful.  His  face 
was  without  beauty.  His  complexion  was  rather 
muddy.  Only  his  dark  glistening  eyes  redeemed  his' 
countenance  from  the  commionplace,  and  this  only 
when  fired  by  the  genius  within  him.  His  voice  v/as 
not  strong,  but  his  modulation  and  use  of  It  was  skil- 
ful, and  was  particularly  effective  In  passages  of 
pathos. 

It  is  probable  that  his  peculiar  genius  was  derived 
from  his  intimate  tmderstandlng  of  the  heart  of  his 
people.  He  knew  how  to  play  upon  their  emotions 
because  he  had  felt  them.  He  knew  how  to  utilize 
their  passions  and  prejudices  because  he  had  them. 
His  youthful  days  beneath  the  peasant's  roof  had 
taught  him  human  nature.  Thus,  feeling  as  he  spoke, 
he  carried  his  hearers  with  him  by  his  absolute  sin- 
cerity— the  highest  attribute  of  eloquence. 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  161 

He  had,  in  addition  to  his  natural  gifts  of  nature, 
acquired  a  vocabulary  unsurpassed  by  any  orator  who 
has  spoken  the  English  tongue ;  and  usually,  unless  car- 
ried away  by  the  fervor  of  the  moment,  he  selected  his 
words  with  fine  discrimination.  It  was  this  extensive 
vocabulary  that  made  it  possible  for  him  to  balance 
his  sentences  so  musically. 

Many  of  his  speeches  were  prepared  while  walking 
the  streets  of  Dublin,  or  riding  back  and  forth  between 
the  capital  and  his  home  at  The  Priory.  It  is  said  that 
most  exquisite  passages  were  conceived  while  alone  in 
his  library  with  his  beloved  violoncello.  It  is  generally 
thought  that  his  masterpiece  was  his  defense  of 
Rowan,  the  plan  for  which,  covering  but  a  few  lines, 
and  jotted  down  roughly  on  a  piece  of  paper,  follows : 

"To  arms — reform — Catholic  emancipation — conven- 
tion— now  unlawful — consequences  of  conviction — trials 
before  revolution — drowned — Lambert — Muir — charac- 
ter of  R — furnace  &c — Rebellion  smothered  stalks — re- 
deeming spirit." 

In  an  eloquent  passage  in  his  speech  for  Hervey  he 
seems  to  be  giving  an  illustration  of  his  own  art  when 
he  says : 

"When  you  endeavor  to  convey  an  idea  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  barbarians  practising  a  great  variety  of  cruelties 
upon  an  incalculable  multitude  of  sufferers,  nothing  de- 
fined or  specific  finds  its  way  to  the  heart;  nor  is  any 
sentiment  excited  save  that  of  a  general  erratic  commis- 
eration. If,  for  instance,  you  wish  to  convey  to  the  mind 
of  an  English  matron  the  horror  of  that  direful  period 
when  in  defiance  of  the  remonstrance  of  the  ever  to  be 
lamented  Abercromby,  our  poor  people  were  surrendered 


162  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

to  the  licentious  brutality  of  the  soldiery  by  the  authority 
of  the  state,  you  would  vainly  endeavor  to  give  her  a 
general  picture  of  lust,  and  rapine,  and  murder  and  con- 
flagration. By  endeavoring  to  comprehend  everything, 
you  would  convey  nothing.  When  the  father  of  poetry 
wishes  to  convey  the  movements  of  contending  armies 
and  an  embattled  field,  he  exemplifies  only,  he  does  not 
describe — he  does  not  venture  to  describe  the  perplexed 
and  promiscuous  conflicts  of  adverse  hosts,  but  by  the 
acts  and  fates  of  a  few  individuals  he  conveys  a  notion 
of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  fight  and  the  fortunes  of  the 
day.  So  should  your  story  to  her  keep  clear  of  gener- 
alities ;  instead  of  exhibiting  the  picture  of  an  entire  prov- 
ince, select  a  single  object,  and  even  in  that  single  object, 
do  not  release  the  imagination  of  your  hearer  to  the  task 
by  giving  more  than  an  outline.  Take  a  cottage — place 
the  affrighted  mother  by  her  orphaned  daughters  at  the 
door,  the  paleness  of  death  in  her  face,  and  more  than 
its  agonies  in  her  heart — her  aching  heart,  her  anxious 
ears  struggling  through  the  mists  of  the  closing  day  to 
catch  the  approaches  of  desolation  and  dishonor.  The 
ruffian  gang  arrives — the  feast  of  plunder  begins — the 
cup  of  madness  kindles  in  its  circulation — the  wandering 
glances  of  the  ravisher  become  concentrated  upon  the 
shrinking  victim ;  you  need  not  dilate — you  need  not  ex- 
patiate— the  unpolluted  mother  to  whom  you  tell  the  story 
of  horror  beseeches  you  not  to  proceed ;  she  presses  her 
child  to  her  arms  and  bathes  it  in  her  tears ;  her  fancy 
catches  more  than  an  angel's  tongue  could  describe ;  in 
a  single  view  she  takes  in  the  whole  miserable  succession 
of  force,  of  profanation,  of  despair,  of  death.  So  it  is 
in  the  question  before  us.  If  any  man  shall  hear  of  this 
day's  proceedings  he  can  not  be  so  foolish  as  to  suppose 
that  we  have  been  confined  to  a  single  character  like  those 
now  brought  before  you." 

There  are  few  things  finer  in  the  language  than  his 
tribute  to  the  Volunteers  of  Ireland  in  his  defense  of 
Rowan,   and   few  things  that  approach  the   superb 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  163 

passage  in  the  same  speech,  beginning  with  the  words, 
**I  speak  in  the  spirit  of  the  British  law."  There  has 
probably  never  been  an  orator  so  capable  of  affecting 
pathos.  Is  there  any  wonder  that  he  brought  tears  to 
the  eyes  of  the  callous  in  his  touching  description  of 
the  fate  of  Orr  in  his  defense  of  Finnerty : 


"Let  me  suppose  that  you  had  known  the  charge  on 
which  Air.  Orr  was  apprehended — the  charge  of  abjur- 
ing that  bigotry  which  had  torn  and  disgraced  his  coun- 
try, of  pledging  himself  to  restore  the  people  of  his 
country  to  their  place  in  the  constitution,  and  of  bind- 
ing himself  never  to  be  the  betrayer  of  his  fellow  labor- 
ers in  that  enterprise ;  that  you  had  seen  him  upon  that 
charge  removed  from  his  industry  and  confined  in  a  gaol; 
that  through  the  long  and  lingering  process  of  twelve 
tedious  months  you  had  seen  him  confined  in  a  dungeon, 
shut  out  from  the  common  use  of  air  and  of  his  limbs ; 
that  day  after  day  you  had  remarked  the  unhappy  cap- 
tive, cheered  by  no  sound  but  the  cries  of  his'  family, 
or  the  clanking  of  his  chains ;  that  you  had  seen  him  at 
last  brought  to  his  trial ;  that  you  had  seen  the  vile  and 
perjured  informer  deposing  against  his  life;  that  you 
had  seen  the  tired  and  worn  and  terrified  jury  give  in 
a  verdict  of  death ;  that  you  had  seen  the  same  jury, 
when  their  returning  sobriety  had  brought  back  their 
conscience,  prostrate  themselves  before  the  humanity  of 
the  bench  and  pray  that  the  mercy  of  the  crown  might 
save  their  characters  from  the  approach  of  an  involun- 
tary crime,  and  their  consciences  from  the  torture  of 
eternal  self-condemnation,  and  their  souls  from  the  in- 
delible stain  of  innocent  blood.  Let  me  suppose  that  you 
had  seen  the  respite  given,  and  that  contrite  and  honest 
recommendation  transmitted  to  that  seat  where  mercy 
was  supposed  to  dwell ;  that  new  and  before  unheard  of 
crimes  had  been  discovered  against  the  informer;  that 
the  royal  mercy  seems  to  relent,  and  that  a  new  respite 
is  sent  to  the  prisoner ;  that  time  is  taken,  as  the  learned 


164  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

counsel  for  the  crown  has  stated  it,  to  see  whether  mercy 
could  be  extended  or  not ;  that,  after  that  period  of  Hn- 
gering  dehberation  passed,  a  third  respite  is  transmitted ; 
that  the  unhappy  captive  himself  feels  the  cheering  hope 
of  being  restored  to  a  family  that  he  adored,  to  a  char- 
acter that  he  had  never  stained,  and  to  a  country  that 
he  had  ever  loved ;  that  you  had  seen  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren upon  their  knees,  giving  those  tears  to  gratitude 
v/hich  their  locked  and  frozen  hearts  could  not  give  to 
despair,  and  imploring  the  blessings  of  eternal  providence 
upon  his  head,  who  had  graciously  spared  the  father  and 
restored  him  to  his  children ;  that  you  had  seen  the  olive 
branch  sent  into  the  little  ark,  but  no  sign  that  the  waters 
had  subsided. 

"  *Alas,  nor  wife,  nor  children  m.ore  shall  he  behold, 

Nor  friends,  nor  sacred  home/ 

*'No  seraph  mercy  unbars  his  dungeon  and  leads  him 
forth  to  life  and  light ;  but  the  minister  of  death  hurries 
him  to  the  scenes  of  suffering  and  shame;  where,  un- 
moved by  the  hostile  array  of  artillery  and  armed  men 
collected  together,  to  secure,  or  to  insult,  or  to  disturb 
him,  he  dies  with  a  solemn  declaration  of  his  innocence, 
and  utters  his  last  breath  in  a  prayer  for  the  liberty  of 
his  country." 

The  second  illustration  of  Curran's  power  with 
pathos  w^ill  be  taken  from  his  speech  in  the  case  of  the 
King  vs.  Johnson,  in  which,  after  a  long  period  of 
misunderstanding,  he  appealed  so  powerfully  to  the 
heart  of  Justice  Avonmore  upon  the  bench  that  tears 
rolled  down  the  jurist's  cheeks  and  a  reconciliation 
was  effected.  There  is  a  felicity  of  expression  and  a 
pensive  melancholy  in  the  appeal  to  the  past  that  makes 
this  one  of  the  most  beautiful  passages  to  be  found  in 
Curran : 

"But  I  cherish,  too,  the  consolatory  hope  that  I  shall 
be  able  to  tell  them  that  I  had  an  old  and  valued  friend, 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  165 

whom  I  would  put  above  all  the  sweepings  of  their  hall, 
who  v/as  of  a  different  opinion ;  who  had  derived  his  ideas 
of  civil  liberty  from  the  purest  fountains  of  Athens  and 
of  Rome;  who  had  fed  the  youthful  vigor  of  his  studi- 
ous mind  with  the  theoretic  knowledge  of  their  wisest 
philosophers  and  statesmen ;  and  who  had  refined  the  the- 
ory into  the  quick  and  exquisite  sensibility  of  moral  in- 
stinct by  contemplating  the  practise  of  their  most  illus- 
trious examples;  by  dwelling  on  the  sweet-souled  piety 
of  Cimon ;  on  the  anticipated  Christianity  of  Socrates ; 
on  the  gallant  and  pathetic  patriotism  of  Epaminondas ; 
on  the  pure  austerity  of  Fabricius.  I  would  add  that  if 
he  had  seemed  to  hesitate,  it  was  but  for  a  moment; 
that  his  hesitation  Vv^as  but  as  the  passing  cloud  that 
floats  across  the  morning  sun  and  hides  it  from  the  view, 
and  does  so  for  a  moment  hide  it  by  involving  the  spec- 
tator without  even  approaching  the  face  of  the  luminary: 
and  this  soothing  hope  I  draw  from  the  dearest  and  ten- 
derest  recollections  of  my  life,  from  the  remembrance  of 
those  Attic  nights  which  we  have  spent  with  those  admired 
and  respected  and  beloved  comipanions  who  have  gone 
before  us;  over  whose  ashes  the  most  precious  tears  of 
Ireland  have  been  shed:  yes,  my  lord,  I  see  you  do  not 
forget  them ;  I  see  their  sacred  forms  passing  in  sad  re- 
view before  your  memory ;  I  see  }- our  pained  and  soft- 
ened fancy  recalling  those  happy  meetings,  when  the 
innocent  enjoyment  of  social  mirth  expanded  into  the  no- 
bler warmth  of  social  virtue ;  and  the  horizon  of  the 
board  became  enlarged  into  the  horizon  of  man ;  Vv^hen 
the  swelling  heart  conceived  and  communicated  the  pure 
and  generous  purpose;  when  my  slenderer  and  younger 
taper  imbibed  its  borrowed  light  from  the  more  matured 
and  redundant  light  of  yours.  Yes,  my  lord,  we  can 
remember  those  nights  without  any  regret  than  that  they 
can  never  more  return,  for 

*We  spent  them  not  in  toys,  nor  lust,  nor  wine, 

But  search  of  deep  philosophy, 

Wit,  eloquence  and  poesy, 
Arts  which  I  loved-  for  they,  my  lord,  were  thine.' " 


166  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Sometimes  Currants  humor  was  not  taken  kindly  by 
the  victim  of  his  smile,  as  in  the  case  of  Doctor  Duige- 
nan,  who  fell  counter  to  the  orator  in  a  debate  on  the 
Catholic  emancipation  bill  and  took  the  ridicule  so  se- 
riously as  to  express  a  ferocious  desire  to  kill  the 
humorist.  The  doctor,  in  a  bigoted  speech,  had  mixed 
his  history  in  a  maudlin  way,  and  denounced  every- 
body, including  Curran,  whom  he  dubbed  the  "bottle 
holder  of  his  party's  chief."  In  his  denunciation  of 
members  he  had  mispronounced  some  of  their  names, 
and  Curran  replied : 

"Sure  I  am  that  if  I  had  been  the  bottle  holder  the 
learned  doctor  would  have  had  less  reason  to  complain 
of  me  than  my  right  honorable  friend ;  for  him  I  should 
have  left  perfectly  sober,  whilst  it  would  very  clearly 
appear  that,  with  respect  to  the  learned  doctor,  the  bot- 
tle would  not  only  have  been  managed  fairly  but  gen- 
erously; and  if  in  furnishing  him  with  liquor  I  had  not 
furnished  him  with  argument,  I  had  at  least  furnished 
him  with  a  good  excuse  for  wanting  it ;  with  the  best  ex- 
cuse for  the  confusion  of  history,  and  divinity,  and  civil 
law,  and  canon  law — that  rollicking  mixture  of  politics 
and  theology  and  antiquity  with  which  he  has  over- 
whelmed the  debate ;  for  the  havoc  and  carnage  he  has 
made  of  the  population  of  the  last  age,  and  the  fury 
with  which  he  seems  determined  to  exterminate  and  even 
to  devour  the  population  of  this;  and  which  urged  him, 
after  tearing  and  gnawing  the  character  of  the  Catholics, 
to  spend  the  last  efforts  of  his  rage  with  the  most  unre- 
lenting ferocity  in  actually  gnawing  their  names." 

As  a  rule,  however,  Curran  found  the  situation  such 
as  to  call  for  a  far  more  pointed  denunciation  of  the 
characters  he  attacked  than  could  be  conveyed  by  sar- 
casm and  humor.    The  bitterness  of  his  assaults  upon 


JOHN    PHILPOT    CURRAN  167 

the  paid  informers  of  the  Castle  sometimes  led  him 
into  extreme  expressions  that  have  been  much  criti- 
cized as  in  bad  taste.  An  illustration  may  be  given  in 
his  description  of  the  informer  as  one  "who  had  been 
buried  a  man  and  left  until  his  heart  had  time  to  fester 
and  dissolve  and  then  dug  up — a  witness."  The  use 
of  such  intemperate  expressions  can  be  traced  to  the 
extreme  provocations  of  the  times. 

All  in  all,  Curran  is  probably  the  greatest  genius 
among  the  Irish  orators.  Although  his  fame  was  not 
achieved  in  addressing  popular  assemblies,  the  memory 
of  his  patriotic  services  is  cherished  by  the  most  hum- 
ble of  the  Irish  peasants. 

Poetry  and  passion — the  coarse  and  the  subtle — pa- 
thos and  humor — and  the  music  of  words — these 
characterize  and  have  immortalized  the  eloquence  of 
John  Philpot  Curran. 


IV 
LORD    PLUNKETT 

The  Conspiracy  of  Castlereagh  and  Pitt;  the  Degradation  of  the 
Irish  Parliament;  the  Fight  Against  the  Con- 
summation of  the  Union 

THE  destruction  of  the  legislative  independence 
of  Ireland  and  the  consummation  of  the  union 
by  fair  means  or  foul  had  been  the  ambition  of  more 
than  one  English  statesman  from  the  days  of  Crom- 
well, but  the  possibility  of  accomplishing  the  deed 
without  serious  protest  from  the  Irish  parliament  or 
the  people  had  never  seemed  so  certain  as  when  Pitt 
selected  Castlereagh  as  the  master  of  ceremonies. 
Henry  Flood,  whose  lash  of  invective  had  fallen  with 
such  stinging  effect  upon  the  enemies  of  his  country, 
had  passed  from  the  stage;  and  Henry  Grattan,  dis- 
gusted and  nauseated  by  the  stench  of  parliamentary 
corruption,  had  voluntarily  retired  from  the  scene. 
The  major  part  of  the  members  of  the  Irish  parliament 
were  either  purchased  or  for  sale,  and  there  appeared 
to  be  no  commanding  genius  of  opposition  to  fear. 
The  masses  of  the  people  looked  with  contempt  upon 
a  body  of  men  who  voluntarily  ascended  the  auction 
block  to  be  knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder.  It 
was  the  policy  of  Pitt  to  hurry  through  with  the  dirty 
job  with  as  little  publicity  as  possible,  and,  in  survey- 

168 


LORD    PLUNKETT  169 

ing  the  field,  he  probably  found  no  one  who  seemed 
capable  of  pillorying  the  monstrous  transaction  with 
an  eloquence  that  would  hold  it  up  to  the  contemptuous 
contemplation  of  posterity. 

It  is  a  peculiarity  of  history,  however,  that  dying 
nations  and  causes  have  usually  called  forth  some 
orator  of  transcendent  genius  to  sing  the  swan  song. 
This  phenomenon  of  history  asserted  itself  unexpect- 
edly in  the  transactions  surrounding  the  shameful  con- 
summation of  the  union.  The  anticipated  silence  was 
broken  by  the  stern  protesting  voice  of  one  of  the  most 
consummate  orators  of  Ireland.  Step  by  step  the  gov- 
ernment encountered  a  contest  which  has  left  inefface- 
able scars  upon  the  reputations  of  the  prime  minister 
who  planned  and  the  secretary  for  Ireland  who  exe- 
cuted the  plan  for  the  destruction  of  Irish  independ- 
ence. With  wonderful  audacity  and  brilliancy  he 
exposed  the  conspiracy  and  in  his  masterful  and  terri- 
ble philippics  he  has  drawn  an  indictment  which  all  the 
apologists  of  English  policy  for  a  century  have  been 
unable  to  quash. 

Nor  was  this  his  only  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  his 
country.  One  of  the  inducements  held  out  by  Pitt  in 
favor  of  the  union  was  that  it  would  be  speedily  fol- 
lowed by  the  complete  emancipation  of  the  Catholics. 
Instead,  however,  the  promise  was  speedily  forgotten. 
It  was  the  privilege  of  the  great  orator  who  had  led 
the  fight  against  the  union  to  plead  with  unexampled 
ability  in  favor  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  on  the 
floor  of  the  imperial  house  of  commons.  He  echoed 
there,  in  more  conciliatory  tones,  the  thunderous  de- 
mands of  O'Connell,  and  by  sheer  force  of  argument 
.wrought  a  revolution  in  parliamentary  sentiment. 


170  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

And  yet  he  has  been  unfortunate  with  posterity.  Pos- 
sibly it  is  because  he  played  his  most  conspicuous  part 
between  the  periods  of  Grattan  and  O'Connell — shut 
in  between  the  mountains.  The  more  probable  expla- 
nation is  to  be  found  in  the  voracious  manner  in  which 
he  availed  himself  of  the  privileges  of  the  union  he 
had  opposed,  and  in  the  sycophantic  apologies  he  of- 
fered for  his  invective  against  Castlereagh.  His  in- 
sistence upon  strictly  constitutional  methods  of  refor- 
mation, his  unfeeling  diatribe  against  Emmet  as  he 
stood  helpless  in  the  dock,  his  bitter  antipathy  to  the 
agitation  of  Sheil  and  O'Connell,  while  consistent  with 
his  principles,  have  deprived  him  of  the  inspirational 
qualities  that  attach  to  the  personalities  of  the  patriot 
orators  of  Ireland.  However,  his  magnificent  elo- 
quence entitles  him  to  a  permanent  place  among  the 
first  of  the  world's  orators,  and  in  his  burning  philip- 
pics against  the  union  all  lovers  of  Ireland  have  cause 
to  cherish  the  memory  of  Lord  Plunkett. 


On  July  first,  1764,  there  was  born  of  a  Presbyte- 
rian minister  a  son  who  was  destined  to  become  one 
of  the  stoutest  champions  of  the  established  church 
and  the  parliamentary  spokesman  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olics. The  father  of  this  remarkable  child  was  Thomas 
Plunkett,  a  man  of  exceptional  intellectuality  and 
force,  famous  alike  for  social  charm  and  polished 
eloquence.  It  appears  to  have  been  his  oratorical  bril- 
liance which  led  him  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Strand 
Street  chapel  in  Dublin,  which  was  the  wealthiest  and 
most  influential  dissenting  congregation  in  the  country. 


LORD    PLUNKETX  171 

The  charm  of  his  society  and  the  beauty  of  his  ser- 
mons seem  to  have  broken  down  all  the  barriers  of 
sect  and  we  find  his  friends  and  associates  among  the 
devotees  of  all  churches  and  the  followers  of  all  pro- 
fessions. Indeed  he  appears  to  have  been  what  we 
of  to-day  would  call  a  "fashionable  minister."  In  a 
society  devoted  to  eloquence  he  was  looked  upon  as  the 
most  fastidious  critic  of  oratory  in  Dublin;  and,  in  the 
days  when  the  Irish  house  of  commons  resounded 
with  the  eloquence  of  some  of  the  most  gifted  tongues 
ever  heard  within  its  walls,  a  comfortable  seat  in  the 
stranger's  gallery  was  allotted  to  him  by  courtesy.  He 
was  as  improvident  as  brilliant,  and,  upon  his  death  in 
1778,  he  left  his  family  utterly  destitute.  So  great 
was  his  popularity,  however,  that  a  public  subscription 
made  it  possible  for  his  widow  to  live  comfortably 
with  her  children. 

From  his  earliest  years  William  C.  Plunkett  was 
fortunate  in  his  associates.  After  the  regulation  period 
in  the  preparatory  schools  of  Dublin  he  entered  Dub- 
lin University  in  his  fifteenth  year,  in  company  with 
the  son  of  the  famous  Barry  Yelverton,  and  found 
himself  thrown  into  competition  with  as  brilliant  an 
array  of  students  as  had  ever  been  assembled  at 
one  time  within  those  celebrated  walls.  Here  he 
measured  swords  in  youthful  competition  with  Thomas 
A.  Emmet  the  patriot,  Charles  Kendall  Bushe  the 
orator,  William  Magee  the  churchman,  Peter  Bur- 
ro wes  the  lawyer,  and  Wolfe  Tone  the  inspired  revo- 
lutionist, who  was  destined  to  rob  the  scaffold  of  a 
victim  through  self -slaughter.  It  was  a  period  of 
great  intellectual  activity  and  unrest  and  the  debates 
of  the  historical  society  of  the  university,  then  a  na- 


172  THE   IRISH   QRATORS 

tional  institution,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  city 
and  the  attendance  of  prominent  members  of  the  Irish 
house  of  commons.  The  discussions  usually  involved 
political  principles  and  policies  then  agitating  the  pub- 
lic mind.  From  the  moment  that  Plunkett  began  to 
participate  in  the  debates  he  was  accorded,  by  common 
consent,  the  front  rank  as  the  most  masterful  of  de- 
baters and  most  eloquent  of  orators.  During  this 
preparatory  period  he  found  time  to  look  down  daily 
from  the  gallery  of  the  house  of  commons  upon  the 
parliamentary  battles  then  dominated  by  the  genius  of 
Grattan  and  Flood ;  and  his  love  of  country  was  fanned 
into  flame  by  the  spectacle  of  the  members  of  parlia- 
ment marching  through  the  streets  of  the  capital  be- 
tween the  long  stern  lines  of  armed  Volunteers  on 
their  way  to  the  Castle  to  demand  the  rights  of  Ireland. 
The  visions  of  that  day,  with  their  auspicious  promise, 
must  have  hovered  over  him  in  that  dismal  hour  when 
he  himself  stood  almost  alone  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons, battling  with  the  desperation  of  despair  against 
the  destruction  of  the  legislative  independence  of  his 
country. 

On  leaving  the  university,  Plunkett  proceeded  to 
London,  where  he  entered  as  a  student  of  law  at  Lin- 
coln's Inn  in  1784.  Here  he  was  forced  by  his  poverty 
to  live  in  the  most  frugal  manner.  We  find  in  one  of 
his  letters  the  whimsical  complaint  that  "not  a  gentle- 
man or  even  a  lady  in  the  neighborhood  has  invited  me 
to  their  house";  and  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  his  shabby 
appearance  in  another  complaint  that  "t'other  evening 
some  fellows  had  the  impudence  to  take  me  for  a  bar- 
ber." While  digging  into  the  dry  tomes  of  the  law 
he  continued  his  oratorical  studies,  and,  in  one  of  his 


Richard  Rothwell,  R.H.A.  Photograph  by  Geoghegan 

William   Conyngham    Plunkett 


LORD    PLUNKETT  173 

letters  to  a  friend,  we  are  permitted  to  smile  upon  him 
"assailing  the  trees  of  Richmond  Park." 

The  Dublin  to  which  he  returned  to  practise  his  pro- 
fession was  gay,  and  the  average  lawyer  was  quite  as 
ambitious  for  a  reputation  as  a  bounder  as  for  fame 
as  a  pleader.  Upon  this  idleness  and  frivolity  Plunkett 
turned  his  back,  and  his  close  application,  together  with 
his  university  reputation,  made  his  progress  rapid. 
During  the  first  twelve  years  after  his  admission  he 
held  aloof  from  politics.  He  found  himself  out  of 
touch  with  the  times.  The  flamboyant  corruption  of 
the  ruling  classes  was  repulsive,  but  his  instinctive  con- 
servatism rebelled  against  the  revolutionary  trend  of 
the  more  patriotic  element.  He  found  himself  without 
a  party.  So  uncompromising  was  his  antipathy  to 
revolutionary  methods  that  he  early  broke  completely 
with  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  and  while  he  parted  with 
Wolfe  Tone  with  more  regret  and  in  a  more  kindly 
spirit  it  was  a  decisive  parting. 

It  was  inevitable,  however,  that  a  young  mail  of 
Plunkett's  majestic  genius  should  be  drawn  into  the 
vortex  of  politics,  and  particularly  at  a  time  when  the 
governmental  conditions  in  Ireland  required  the  serv- 
ices of  her  brightest  and  most  courageous  sons.  In 
1798  Lord  Charlemont,  who  had  introduced  so  many 
promising  youths  to  public  life,  and  set  the  feet  of 
Edmund  Burke  in  the  path  he  was  to  tread  to  glory, 
was  looking  around  for  another  protege.  His  atten- 
tion was  directed  to  Plunkett,  who  was  invited  to 
Charlemont  House.  A  prolonged  conference  ensued, 
during  which  the  young  man  explained  in  detail  his 
views  upon  the  public  questions  then  pending  or  immi- 
nent.    It  developed  that  they  agreed  upon  all  points 


174  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

but  one.  Plunkett  even  then  had  become  ardently  at- 
tached to  the  cause  of  Catholic  emancipation,  while  the 
Older  man,  who  had  headed  the  Volunteers,  was  still 
determined  upon  Protestant  ascendency.  Because  of 
this  disagreement  Plunkett  declined  the  proffer  of  a 
seat,  but  was  persuaded  to  call  again  on  the  promise 
that  the  obstacle  might  be  removed  without  the  com- 
promising of  principles.  On  the  second  call  Lord 
Charlemont  agreed  that  Plunkett  should  go  into  par- 
liament absolutely  unhampered  by  any  pledges,  and 
with  this  understanding  the  young  orator  entered 
upon  the  career  in  the  Irish  parliament  which  was  to 
be  so  brief  and  yet  so  glorious. 

II 

In  accepting  the  proffered  seat  from  Lord  Charle- 
mont it  appears  that  Plunkett  was  persuaded,  because 
of  their  common  determination,  to  resist  to  the  last 
ditch  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  government  to 
rob  Ireland  of  her  legislative  independence.  It  was  no 
longer  a  secret  that  this  was  the  ambition  of  Pitt,  the 
prime  minister.  The  situation  within  the  parliament 
could  scarcely  have  been  worse.  The  seed  of  corrup- 
tion sown  by  a  succession  of  ministers  had  brought 
forth  such  an  abundant  harvest  that  an  honest  man 
could  hardly  exist  in  the  house  of  commons.  Already 
Henry  Grattan,  hopelessly  disgusted  w^ith  prevailing 
conditions,  had  registered  an  impotent  protest  by  with- 
drawing from  the  house  and  seeking  the  seclusion  of 
his  country  home.  At  the  time  Plunkett  took  his  seat 
in  the  house  the  government  was  positive  at  all  times  of 
a  majority  of  one  hundred  in  support  of  ministerial 


LORD    PLUNKETT  175 

policies.  We  have  it  on  English  authority  that  in  1798 
the  government  had  at  its  disposal  eighty-six  members 
who  held  proprietary  seats,  twelve  who  were  members 
of  the  government,  forty- four  who  were  placemen, 
thirty-two  who  were  subservient  because  of  promises 
of  governmental  favor,  and  twelve  who  appear  to 
have  been  actually  honest  in  their  support.  As  against 
this  solid  phalanx  there  were  twenty-nine  who  were 
rated  as  thoroughly  independent  both  of  the  govern- 
ment and  of  party  alignment.  The  active  opposition 
consisted  of  thirty-two  nominees  of  Whig  proprietors 
and  fifty-two  who  belonged  to  the  popular  party. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  Pitt  sent 
over  Cornwallis,  as  lord  lieutenant,  and  the  infamous 
Lord  Castlereagh,  as  secretary,  with  instructions  to 
force  through  the  consummation  of  the  union  by  fair 
means  or  foul.  The  prospects  for  an  effective  oppo- 
sition to  the  machinations  of  the  ministry  seemed  prac- 
tically hopeless.  Indeed,  the  Dublin  Evening  Post,  m 
commenting  on  Plunkett's  entrance  upon  his  parlia- 
mentary duties,  coupled  a  high  tribute  to  his  integrity 
and  ability  with  the  pessimistic  prediction  that  he 
would  find  himself  handicapped  hopelessly  by  the  char- 
acter of  the  material  out  of  which  he  would  have  to 
build  a  legitimate  opposition. 

It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  Cornwallis  found  the  work 
assigned  him  a  "dirty  work"  and  not  at  all  to  his 
taste,  and  that  the  duty  of  purchasing  the  liberties  of 
a  people  through  the  corruption  of  a  parliament  which 
represented  only  the  Protestant  minority  and  misrep- 
resented that,  was  left  to  the  more  wily  and  unscru- 
pulous Castlereagh.  How  well  he  accomplished  his 
miserable  work  the  world  now  knows.    During  more 


176  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

than  a  century,  and  until  quite  recently,  no  historian 
has  had  the  temerity  to  utter  a  word  in  his  defense. 
At  the  time  of  the  union  he  was  a  young  man  of  ex- 
traordinary capacity,  of  brilliant  mentality,  cold,  cal- 
culating, ambitious,  impervious  to  attack,  and  abso- 
lutely without  the  slightest  semblance  of  shame.  That 
Pitt  was  an  excellent  judge  of  men  may  be  gathered 
from  his  selection  of  this  man  to  lead  the  forces  of 
corruption  on  the  floor  of  the  Irish  house  of  commons. 
But  such  a  colossal  scheme  of  corruption  was  quite 
beyond  the  capacity  of  Castlereagh  alone,  and  again 
we  find  the  government  fortunate  in  his  coadjutor. 
This  was  none  other  than  the  secretary  to  Castlereagh, 
a  low  creature  by  the  name  of  Cook,  who  possessed 
neither  feeling,  scruple  nor  prejudice. 

The  purposes  of  Pitt,  operating  through  his  Irish 
representatives,  was  twofold.  His  idea  was  to  create 
a  reign  of  terror  through  the  country  and  thereby 
frighten  the  timJd  into  the  arms  of  England  for  pro- 
tection, and  in  this  he  was  unintentionally  aided  by 
the  work  of  the  United  Irishmen.  He  expected  to 
purchase  a  safe  majority  of  the  house  and  banked 
considerably,  and  not  without  justification,  upon  that 
indifference  of  the  people  as  to  the  fate  of  their  par- 
liament, which  grew  out  of  a  prevailing  contempt  for 
its  corruption. 

In  looking  over  the  personnel  of  parliament  Plunkett 
found  a  few  men  of  irreproachable  integrity  and  un- 
purchasable  patriotism  upon  whom  he  could  rely  for 
cooperation.  There  were  his  old  friends  of  the  his- 
torical society,  the  brilliant  Bushe  and  the  eloquent 
Burrowes,    and   there    were    Sir    Laurence    Parsons, 


LORD    PLUNKETT  177 

George  Knox,  and  that  unexcelled  parliamentarian, 
George  Ponsonby. 

While  the  preliminary  negotiations  for  the  whole- 
sale purchase  were  in  progress  the  subject  of  the  union 
was  not  broached,  but  during  this  brief  respite  we  find 
Plunkett  participating  in  an  attack  upon  the  govern- 
ment in  connection  with  a  bill  providing  for  the  case 
of  a  proprietor  of  a  newspaper  leaving  the  country  to 
avoid  the  consequences  of  an  article  printed  in  his 
paper.  This  was  inspired  by  a  desire  to  reach  the  Dub- 
lin Press,  the  organ  of  the  United  Irishmen,  whose 
proprietor  was  at  that  time  in  Paris.  Incidentally  it 
was  intended  as  an  effective  blow  at  the  liberty  of  the 
press.  It  provided  that  the  editor  of  a  paper  and  two 
others  should  each  give  security  for  one  thousand 
pounds,  the  ministers  to  determine  arbitrarily  upon  the 
acceptability  of  the  two  securities.  The  speech  of 
Plunkett  on  this  occasion  is  chiefly  interesting  in  that  it 
shows  the  militant  spirit  in  which  he  approached  the 
final  battle  with  the  powers  of  darkness. 

"The  liberty  of  the  press  in  Ireland  would  receive  a 
vital  wound,"  he  said.  "Every  channel  of  communica- 
tion with  the  great  bulk  of  the  people  would  be  shut 
up,  except  those  which  government  might  think  proper 
to  keep  open  to  blazon  their  own  praise  and  their  own 
virtue.  There  would  reign  throughout  the  country  a 
deadly  silence,  except  where  the  venal  voice  of  some 
hireling  print  might  break  in  upon  it  by  mutilated  and 
false  statements  of  facts,  by  misrepresentation  of  prin- 
ciples, or  by  base  and  servile  adulation  of  its  masters. 
.  .  .  The  licentiousness  of  the  press  has  been  com- 
plained of :  I  will  tell  government  a  better  remedy  against 
it  than  this  bill  affords.    Let  them  act  in  such  a  manner 


178  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

as  to  be  above  its  obloquy.  Let  them  restore  the  consti- 
tution. Let  them  reform  the  abuses  which  pollute  every 
department.  Let  them  reform  the  parliament.  Let  them 
mitigate  their  system  of  coercion.  Let  them  conciliate 
the  people.  Then  they  may  laugh  at  the  slanders  of  a 
licentious  press.  They  will  have  a  better  defense  against 
its  malice  than  this  unconstitutional  measure  can  afford 
them." 


It  is  probable  that  the  speech  of  Plunkett  was  re- 
sponsible for  the  fact  that  the  security  was  reduced  to 
five  hundred  pounds,  but  with  that  exception  the  bill 
was  pushed  to  its  passage.  In  the  extract  just  cited, 
we  are  given  an  idea  of  the  reforms  for  which  Plun- 
kett would  have  labored  had  the  parliament  been 
spared.  But  it  was  already  doomed.  Even  as  he 
spoke  of  reforming  the  parliament,  Castlereagh  and 
Cook  were  busy  in  buying  its  assassins. 

The  opposition,  however,  determined  to  force  the 
fighting,  and  a  little  later  we  find  Sir  Laurence  Par- 
sons moving  for  a  committee  of  the  whole  house  to 
consider  the  prevailing  discontents,  their  cause  and 
cure.  This  was  inspired  by  the  insurrection  of  the 
United  Irishmen.  In  opposing  the  motion,  Castle- 
reagh declared  that  nothing  would  conciliate  the  United 
Irishmen  but  the  establishment  of  a  republic;  that  the 
excesses  of  the  soldiery  in  meeting  the  emergency  was 
unpreventable ;  and  that  existing  law^s  were  sufficient 
to  deal  with  the  situation.  Here  Plunkett  stepped  into 
the  breach  with  a  speech  of  audacity  and  brilliance  in 
which  he  challenged  the  contention  of  Castlereagh  that 
the  discontent  was  limited  to  the  United  Irishmen 
and  insisted  that  the  people  had  abundant  grievance. 


LORD   PLUNKETT,  179 

'The  rebellion  of  the  mind  by  which  you  are  assailed," 
he  said,  "is  dreadful  and  not  to  be  combatted  by  force. 
You  have  tried  that  remedy  for  three  years  and  the  ex- 
periment has  failed.  You  have  stopped  the  mouth  of  the 
public  by  a  convention  bill — have  committed  the  prop- 
erty and  the  liberty  of  the  people  to  the  magistrate  by 
the  insurrection  act ;  you  have  suspended  the  habeas  cor- 
pus act ;  you  have  had,  and  you  have  used,  a  strong  mil- 
itary force — as  great  a  force  as  you  could  call  for;  and 
there  has  been  nothing  that  v^^ould  tend  to  strengthen 
your  hands  or  enable  you  to  beat  down  this  formidable 
conspiracy  that  you  have  not  been  invested  with.  What 
effect  has  your  system  produced?  Discontent  and  sedi- 
tion have  grown  threefold  under  your  management. 

"Gentlemen  have  talked  of  French  principles.  These 
principles  have  grown  indeed,  but  it  is  because  they  were 
not  resisted  by  proper  means.  I  wonder  not  that  when 
assailed  by  these  principles  the  rotten  fabric  of  the  French 
monarchy  tumbled  into  atoms ;  nor  do  I  wonder  that  they 
carried  terror  and  destruction  through  the  despotisms  of 
Europe.  But  I  did  hope  that  when  the  hollow  specter 
of  French  democracy  approached  us  it  would  have  fled 
before  the  mild  and  chaste  dignity  of  the  British  con- 
stitution. It  would  have  done  so  if  you  had  not  destroyed 
the  constitution  before  it  reached  us.  You  opposed  it 
then  with  force,  and  its  progress  grew  upon  you.  Re- 
store the  constitution  and  it  will  defend  you  from  this 
monster.  Reform  your  parliament.  Cease  to  bestow 
upon  the  worthless  the  wealth  you  extract  from  the  bow- 
els of  your  people.  Let  the  principles  of  that  revolution 
which  you  profess  to  admire  regulate  your  conduct,  and 
the  horrid  shade  will  melt  into  air  before  you." 

Thus  the  repetition — ''Reform  the  parliament,"  "Re- 
store the  constitution."  It  was  to  this  hope  that 
Plunkett  clung  with 'the  tenacity  of  desperation.  But 
the  machine  of  utter  destruction  was  even  now  at 


180  JHE   IRISH   ORATORS 

work  and  the  motion  of  Parsons  was  defeated  by  the 
minions  of  Castlereagh. 

The  revolution  of  '98  soon  broke  out  with  all  its 
fury  and  the  government  thought  the  hour  auspicious 
for  the  proposition  of  the  union.  The  parliament 
>vas  packed  by  the  government  and  Castlereagh  was 
satisfied.  It  was  decided  that  Cook  should  gradually 
prepare  the  public  for  the  proposal  and  this  was  done 
through  the  publication  of  a  pamphlet  called,  Argu- 
ments For  and  Against  the  Union,  which  created  a 
sensation  and  was  speedily  answered  by  Bushe  in  a 
brilliant  pamphlet  which  he  called,  Cease  Your  Fun- 
ning,  or  The  Rebel  Exposed.  These  were  followed 
by  numerous  pamphlets  for  and  against,  of  more  or  less 
merit  as  literary  productions. 

Soon  the  public  awoke  to  the  danger.  The  Law- 
yers' Corps  of  Dublin  was  called  together  and  spirited 
speeches  against  the  union  were  made — only  to  elicit 
the  smiles  of  the  Castle.  Bankers,  merchants,  various 
trades  and  professions  followed  in  quick  succession, 
but  all  these  manifestations  of  general  disapproval 
were  treated  by  Castlereagh  with  derision.  Finally, 
in  December  of  1798,  the  Anti-Union  newspaper  ap- 
peared and^  thirty  numbers  were  issued  containing 
brilliant  contributions  from  Grattan,  Plunkett,  Bushe 
and  Burrowes.  The  most  clever  satire  of  Plunkett 
was  a  letter  written  by  Miss  Ireland  concerning  the 
proposal  of  Mr.  Bull  (England)  of  marriage  (union). 
The  young  lady  (Ireland)  explains  the  motives  of 
Mr.  Bull. 

"These  pretensions  of  his  arose  from  his  natural  pride 
and  imperiousness  of  disposition  joined  to  a  sordid  and 
dishonest  wish  to  get  possession  of  my  family  estate,  to 


LORD    PLUNKETT  181 

which  he  had  no  other  claim  than  that  it  lay  contiguous 
to  his  own,  and  that  we  both  held  under  the  same  land- 
lord." 

She  then  goes  on  to  lay  the  blame  for  the  trouble 
to  ''the  ill-advised  chimerical  plans  of  a  head  clerk" 
(Pitt)  who  "has  contrived  to  introduce  into  my  house 
a  set  of  his  own  creatures,  whose  object  is  to  excite 
dissensions  among  the  family."  She  mentions  one  of 
these  by  name  "a  scullion  in  Mr.  Bull's  family  who  I 
was  prevailed  upon  to  hire  as  a  shop-boy,  though  he 
was  very  ragged  and  had  no  discharge  to  produce." 
(Cook.)  She  complains  that  this  "scullion"  had  suc- 
ceeded in  corrupting  many  of  her  "domestics"  (mem- 
bers of  parliament).  Such  brilliant  satires  of  course 
had  no  more  effect  on  the  government  than  a  lot  of 
peas  thrown  against  the  hide  of  an  elephant.  When 
Cornwallis  opened  parliament  with  an  address  from 
the  throne  in  January,  1799,  he  cautiously  broached 
the  subject  of  the  union — and  the  fight  was  on  in 
earnest. 

In  determining  upon  the  character  of  his  speeches 
on  the  subject  Plunkett  divided  the  membership  of  par- 
liament into  three  groups.  Those  who  were  pur- 
chased he  proposed  to  hold  up  to  contempt,  those  who 
were  opposed  to  the  union  he  intended  to  encourage, 
and  the  wavering  he  hoped  to  win  by  argument.  His 
plan  w^as  to  assail  Castlereagh  with  a  ferocity  that 
would  weaken  him  in  the  face  of  the  w'avering. 

The  address  of  the  lord  lieutenant  was  delivered  on 
January  twenty-second  and  the  debate  began  at  one 
o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  that  day.  The  house  sat  In 
continuous  session  until  eleven  o'clock  on  the  following 
morning.    Sir  John  Parnell  led  off  with  an  attack  and 


182  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

was  followed  by  numerous  speakers  along  a  similar 
line.  That  Castlereagh  contemplated  intimidation  as 
one  of  his  weapons  was  manifested  early  when  one 
speaker  made  a  significant  reference  to  the  government 
supporters  and  the  suggestion  was  made  to  take  his 
words  down.    At  this  Plunkett  rose. 

*T  have  no  idea  that  the  freedom  of  debate  shall  be 
controlled  by  such  interruptions,"  he  said.  "I  do  not  con- 
ceive that  my  honorable  friend  is  out  of  order,  and  when 
my  turn  comes  to  speak,  I  shall  repeat  these  charges  in 
still  stronger  language,  if  possible,  and  indulge  gentle- 
men at  the  other  side  of  the  house  with  an  opportunity 
of  taking  down  my  words  if  they  have  any  fancy  to 
do  so." 

A  little  later  the  speaker  who  had  been  threatene3 
demanded :  *Ts  it  not  well  known  that  there  are  votes 
in  this  house  influenced  by  the  minister?"  At  this  a 
motion  was  made  to  take  down  his  words  and  again 
Plunkett  broke  in  with  the  suggestion  that  "if  they  are 
taken  down  the  house  will  be  committed  to  an  in- 
quiry into  the  truth  of  the  allegation."  This  bold 
declaration  had  its  effect  and  the  speaker  was  per- 
mitted to  proceed.  At  length  Castlereagh  rose  to  re- 
ply and  his  speech,  replete  with  sneers,  was  ridiculously 
weak  as  an  argument.  When  he  resumed  his  seat 
Plunkett  rose  to  answer  him.  It  was  now  between  six 
and  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  dreary  light 
of  a  winter  day  cast  weird  shadows  in  the  house.  The 
massive  face  of  Plunkett  was  corrugated  with  the  lines 
of  thought  and  anxiety  and  suppressed  passion.  His 
metallic  voice  rang  out  defiantly,  challengingly,  in 
awful  warning.     It  was  soon  evident  that  there  was 


LORD    PLUNKETT  183 

one  man  in  the  house  who  could  neither  be  purchased 
nor  intimidated. 


"But,  Sir,"  he  said,  "the  freedom  of  discussion  which 
has  taken  place  on  this  side  of  the  house  has,  it  seems, 
given  great  offense  to  gentlemen  on  the  treasury  bench. 
They  are  men  of  nice  and  punctilious  honor,  and  they 
will  not  endure  that  anything  shall  be  said  which  im- 
plies a  reflection  on  their  untainted  and  virgin  integrity. 
They  threatened  to  take  down  the  words  of  an  honorable 
gentleman  who  spoke  before  me  because  they  conveyed 
an  insinuation ;  and  I  promised  them  on  that  occasion 
that  if  the  fancy  for  taking  down  words  continued,  I 
would  indulge  them  in  it  to  the  top  of  their  bent.  Sir, 
I  am  determined  to  keep  my  word  with  them,  and  I  now 
will  not  insinuate,  but  I  will  directly  assert  that,  base 
and  wicked  as  is  the  object  proposed,  the  means  used  to 
effect  it  have  been  more  flagitious  and  abominable. 

"Do  you  choose  to  take  down  my  words?  Do  you 
dare  me  to  the  proof? 

"Sir,  I  have  been  induced  to  think  that  we  had  at  the 
head  of  the  executive  government  of  this  country  a  plain, 
honest  soldier,  unaccustomed  to,  and  disdaining  the  in- 
trigues of  politics,  and  who,  as  an  additional  evidence 
of  the  directness  and  purity  of  his  views,  had  chosen 
for  his  secretary  a  simple  and  honest  youth  whose  inex^ 
perience  was  the  voucher  of  his  innocence ;  and  yet  I  will 
be  bold  to  say  that  during  the  viceroyalty  of  this  un- 
spotted veteran,  and  during  the  administration  of  this  un- 
assuming stripling — within  these  last  six  weeks,  a  system 
of  black  corruption  has  been  carried  on  within  the  walls 
of  the  Castle  which  would  disgrace  the  annals  of  the 
worst  period  of  the  history  of  either  country. 

"Do  you  choose  to  take  down  my  words? 

"I  need  call  no  witness  to  your  bar  to  prove  them.  I 
see  two  right  honorable  gentlemen  sitting  within  your 
walls  who  have  long  and  faithfully  served  the  crown, 
and  who  have  been  dismissed  because  they  dared  to  ex- 
press a  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  freedom  of  their  coun- 


184  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

try.  I  see  another  honorable  gentleman  who  has  been 
forced  to  resign  his  place  as  commissioner  of  the  revenue 
because  he  refused  to  cooperate  in  this  dirty  job  of  a  dirty 
administration, 

"Do  you  dare  to  deny  this  ? 

"I  say  that  at  this  moment  the  threat  of  dismissal  from 
office  is  suspended  over  the  heads  of  the  members  who 
now  sit  around  me,  in  order  to  influence  their  votes  on 
the  question  of  this  night,  involving  everything  that  can 
be  sacred  or  dear  to  man. 

"Do  you  desire  to  take  down  my  words?  Utter  the 
desire  and  I  will  prove  the  truth  of  them  at  your  bar." 

After  a  terrible  invective  aimed  at  Castlereagh, 
whose  beautiful  w^ife  looked  down  from  the  gallery, 
Plunkett  continued  while  the  house  sat  in  awed  won- 
der: 


"I  make  the  assertion  deliberately — I  repeat  it,  and  I 
call  on  any  man  who  hears  me  to  take  down  my  words. 
You  have  not  been  elected  for  this  purpose.  You  are 
appointed  to  make  laws  and  not  legislatures.  You  are 
appointed  to  act  under  the  constitution,  not  to  alter  it. 
You  are  appointed  to  exercise  the  functions  of  legislators 
and  not  to  transfer  them.  And  if  you  do  so  your  act  is 
a  dissolution  of  the  government.  You  resolve  society 
into  its  original  elements  and  no  man  is  bound  to  obey 
you.  .  .  .  When  you  transfer  you  abdicate,  and  the 
great  original  trust  reverts  to  the  people,  from  whom  it 
issued.  Yourselves  you  may  extinguish,  but  parliament 
you  can  not  extinguish.  It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people.  It  is  enshrined  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  con- 
stitution. It  is  immortal  as  the  island  which  it  protects. 
As  well  might  the  frantic  suicide  hope  that  the  act  which 
destroys  his  miserable  body  should  extinguish  his  eternal 
soul.  Again,  I  therefore  warn  you,  you  do  not  dare  to 
lay  your  hands  on  the  constitution;  it  is  above  your 
power." 


LORD    PLUNKETT  185 

Then  turning  again  to  Castlereagh,  who  had  asked 
that  the  question  be  discussed  with  calmness  and  com- 
posure, he  exclaimed  in  one  of  the  most  eloquent  out- 
bursts in  the  language: 

"I  am  called  on  to  surrender  my  birthright  and  my 
honor,  and  I  am  told  that  I  should  be  calm  and  should 
be  composed.  National  pride.  Independence  of  our 
country.  These,  we  are  told  by  the  minister,  are  only 
vulgar  topics  fitted  for  the  meridian  of  the  mob,  but  un- 
worthy to  be  mentioned  to  such  an  enlightened  assembly 
as  this;  they  are  trinkets  and  gewgaws  fit  to  catch  the 
fancy  of  childish  and  unthinking  people  like  you,  Sir,  or 
like  your  predecessor  in  that  chair,  but  utterly  unworthy 
the  consideration  of  this  house  or  of  the  matured  under- 
standing of  the  noble  lord  who  condescends  to  instruct 
us.  Gracious  God !  We  see  a  Perry  reascending  from 
the  tomb,  and  raising  his  awful  voice  to  warn  us  against 
the  surrender  of  our  freedom,  and  we  see  that  the  proud 
and  virtuous  feelings  which  warmed  the  breast  of  that 
aged  and  venerable  man  are  only  calculated  to  excite  the 
contempt  of  this  youthful  philosopher,  who  has  been 
transplanted  from  the  nursery  to  the  cabinet  to  outrage 
the  feelings  and  the  understanding  of  the  country." 

It  was  in  conclusion  that  Plunkett  referred  to  the 
efforts  of  the  minister  to  create  internal  dissensions 
with  the  view  to  making  easy  the  overthrow  of  the 
constitution  and  made  his  famous  vow  which  he  was 
never  permitted  to  forget  in  the  later  days  when  he 
and  Castlereagh  formed  a  mutual  admiration  society : 

"They  (ministers)  have  united  every  rank  and  descrip- 
tion of  men  by  the  pressure  of  this  grand  and  momentous 
subject;  and  I  tell  them  that  they  will  see  every  honest 
and  every  independent  man  in  Ireland  rally  round  her 
constitution,  and  merge  every  other  consideration  in  his 


186  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

opposition  to  this  ungenerous  and  odious  measure.  For 
my  part,  I  will  resist  it  to  the  last  gasp  of  my  existence 
and  with  the  last  drop  of  my  blood,  and  when  I  feel  the 
hour  of  my  dissolution  approaching  I  will,  like  the  father 
of  Hannibal,  take  my  children  to  the  altar  and  swear 
them  to  eternal  hostility  against  the  invaders  of  their 
country's  freedom." 

The  efTect  of  this  powerful  speech  was  magical  and 
the  government  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  one. 

Two  days  later  the  debate  was  renew^ed  on  the  re- 
port on  the  address  when  Parsons,  now  determined  to 
follow  up  his  advantage,  moved  to  amend  through  the 
expurgation  of  the  paragraph  relating  to  the  union. 
The  house  was  in  session  until  noon  on  the  following 
day  and  the  government  was  defeated  by  a  majority 
of  five. 

The  tools  of  the  Castle,  burning  under  the  scorpion 
lash  of  Plunkett,  were  now  more  than  ever  determined 
to  resort  to  intimidation,  and,  while  they  had  lacked 
the  moral  courage  to  stop  Plunkett  in  his  castigation, 
they  now  conceived  of  another  plan  which  smacks 
very  much  of  a  conspiracy  to  murder.  Castlereagh 
himself  had  thrown  out  the  idea,  although  probably 
not  this  special  suggestion,  in  his  reply  to  Plunkett 
in  which  he  had  hinted  at  a  duel.  This  led  to  the 
formation  of  the  notorious  Union  Dueling  Club  which 
grew  out  of  a  dinner  at  Castlereagh's  home  attended 
by  a  number  of  the  fighting  members  of  the  mer- 
cenaries. After  the  wine  had  flowed  freely  it  was 
suggested  that  each  man  make  the  honor  of  the  gov- 
ernment his  own  and  act  accordingly.  But  even  in 
this  the  hirelings  were  checkmated.  The  moment  the 
report  of  the  meeting  at  Castlereagh's  got  out  a  sim- 


LORD    PLUNKETT  187 

ilar  meeting  was  held  at  Charlemont  House,  and  had 
the  members  of  Castlereagh's  fighting  squad  seen  fit 
to  carry  out  their  threat  they  would  doubtless  have 
been  accommodated  to  their  heartsV  content. 

After  the  second  defeat  of  the  government,  Castle- 
reagh  moved  for  an  adjournment  until  February  sev- 
enth with  the  evident  intention  of  awaiting  further  in- 
structions from  Pitt.  No  more  was  heard  of  the  union 
until  in  May  when  the  matter  was  forced  upon  the 
house  by  a  motion  to  the  effect  that  the  speaker  should 
issue  a  writ  for  the  return  of  a  member  for  Kilmallock 
in  the  place  of  C.  S.  Oliver,  who  had  accepted  the 
escheatorship  of  Munster,  a  position  similar  to  the 
Chiltern  Guards  in  England.  This  led  to  a  pointed 
question,  aimed  at  Castlereagh,  as  to  why  this  place 
had  not  been  offered  to  Colonel  Cole.  To  the  query 
Castlereagh  sat  mute.  At  this  Plunkett  entered  the 
debate  with  a  severe  castigation  of  Castlereagh's  con- 
temptuous silence  and  the  direct  and  explicit  charge 
that  the  government  was  using  its  patronage  for  pur- 
poses of  corruption.  The  motion  which  followed  to 
grant  a  pension  of  ten  pounds  a  year  to  Cole  led  to 
another  debate  in  which  one  purchased  creature  of  the 
crown  exposed  his  hand  by  the  insinuation  that  the 
enemies  of  the  union  were  "also"  interested  from 
selfish  motives.  This  was  only  another  peg  upon  which 
Plunkett  hastened  to  hang  another  direct  charge  of 
corruption : 

"I  wish  that  the  gentleman  had  bestowed  some  of  his 
indignation  on  the  conduct  which  gave  rise  to  the  pres- 
ent debate;  and  if  a  conduct  the  most  base  and  flagrant 
could  inspire  terms  of  disapprobation,  the  honorable  and 
learned  member  must  certainly  have  recovered  the  use 


188  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

of  his  tongue.  He  would  then  have  had  to  reprobate 
the  most  shameful  hypocrisy — the  most  scandalous  ef- 
frontery ;  and  the  warmth  of  his  eloquence  and  the  free- 
dom of  his  mxanner  would  have  been  well  employed  in 
reprehending  the  conduct  of  a  minister  who  had  not  only 
thrown  away  the  substance,  but  the  semblance  of  virtue." 

Lord  Cornwallis  prorogued  parliament  on  the  first 
of  June  with  the  announcement  that  the  government 
would  bring  on  the  question  of  the  union  again  at 
the  earliest  opportunity  in  the  next  session.  It  was 
during  the  recess  that  Cornwallis  made  his  celebrated 
union  tour  of  Ireland  soliciting  signatures  of  all 
classes,  down  to  the  very  dregs,  in  favor  of  the  gov- 
ernmental project — a  tour  graphically  and  brilliantly 
described  by  Plunkett  in  a  passage  which  wall  be  cited 
later  on. 

When  parliament  met  on  January  fifteenth,  1800, 
the  great  and  final  debate  on  the  union  was  forced. 
In  his  address  from  the  throne,  Cornwallis  failed  to 
mention  the  union,  and  when,  at  the  conclusion,  the 
hirelings  of  the  Castle  moved  an  address  echoing  the 
Cornwallis  speech,  Parsons  moved  an  amendment  to 
the  effect  that  the  house  would  never  tolerate  the 
union.  In  his  speech  in  support  of  his  motion  Par- 
sons charged  that  the  failure  to  mention  the  union 
was  due  to  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  minister  to  take 
the  house  at  a  disadvantage.  At  this  Castlereagh  re- 
plied that  it  had  been  the  intention  to  submit  the 
project  of  the  union  in  a  separate  address.  The  debate 
followed,  and  in  the  course  of  it  the  work  accom- 
plished by  Castlereagh  during  the  recess  was  dis- 
closed when  Doctor  Brown,  of  the  University  of  Dub- 
lin, who  had  violently  opposed  the  union  in  the  last 


LORD    PLUNKETT  189 

session,  rose  to  support  Castlereagh.  The  moment  he 
sat  down  Phmkett  took  the  floor.  Referring  to  the 
changed  attitude  of  Brown  he  said : 

"What  change  has  taken  place?  Has  the  measure 
changed  its  nature?  Or  the  minister  his  objects,  or  the 
countries  their  relations?  No,  you  shall  know  the 
changes  that  have  taken  place — I  will  unmask  the  men 
who  have  dared  to  come  into  the  midst  of  parliament 
and  people  to  purchase  their  liberties  by  sordid  bribery 
and  to  subdue  their  spirits  by  lawless  force,  and  if  I  can 
not  awaken  the  feelings  of  honor  or  virtue  in  their  hearts, 
will  call  the  blush  of  shame  into  their  cheeks/' 

In  the  speech  that  followed  Plunkett  surpassed  him- 
self in  brilliancy,  and  several  passages  will  be  cited 
later  as  illustrating  certain  features  of  his  eloquence. 
His  historical  review  of  the  relations  of  the  two  coun- 
tries was  masterful  and  significant,  all  tending  to  show 
the  utter  unreliability  of  promises  on  the  part  of  the 
ministers  of  the  crown.  There  is  something  of  pathos 
in  his  discussion  of  the  rebellion  of  '98  and  the  treat- 
ment accorded  the  loyal  element  which  had  armed 
itself  in  behalf  of  the  crown  only  to  find  the  project 
of  the  union  again  forced  upon  them : 

*I  do  not  wish  to  inquire  too  minutely  why  the  embers 
of  rebellion  have  been  so  long  suffered  to  exist ;  I  do 
not  wish  to  derogate  from  the  praise  to  which  the  noble 
lord  may  be  entitled  for  his  clemency.  Its  very  excesses, 
if  they  do  not  claim  praise,  are  at  least  entitled  to  indul- 
gence; but  when  I  see  that  all  the  rays  of  mercy  and 
forbearance  are  reserved  to  gild  the  brow  of  the  vice- 
roy, and  that  all  the  odium  of  harshness  and  severity 
is  flung  upon  the  parliament;  when  I  see  the  clemency 
of  the  chief  governor  throwing  its  mantle  over  the  mid- 


190  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

night  murderer;  when  I  see  it  holding  parley  with  the 
armed  rebel  in  the  field;  and  when  I  see  the  task  of 
making  war  against  the  victim  in  his  grave  and  the  in- 
fant in  the  cradle  thrown  by  the  same  government  upon 
the  parliament,  I  can  not  avoid  suspecting  that  there  is 
something  more  than  the  mere  milk  of  human  kindness 
in  the  forbearance  on  the  one  part,  and  something  more 
than  mere  political  caution  in  the  severities  of  the  other. 
But,  sir,  this  rebellion  was  subdued  by  the  parliament 
and  the  people  of  Ireland ;  and  before  the  country  had 
a  breathing  time;  before  the  loyalist  had  time  to  rest 
from  his  labors ;  before  the  traitor  had  received  his  pun- 
ishment or  his  pardon;  whilst  we  were  all  stunned  by 
the  stupendous  events  which  we  had  scarcely  passed; 
whilst  the  ground  was  yet  smoking  with  the  blood  of 
an  O'Neill  and  of  a  Mountjoy,  the  wicked  conspiracy 
was  announced  which  was  to  rob  their  country  of  its 
liberties  and  their  minor  children  of  their  birthright. 
With  a  suspended  habeas  corpus  act,  with  the  military 
tribunals  in  every  county,  the  overwhelming  and  irre- 
trievable measure  of  union  was  announced  for  the  free, 
enlightened  and  calm  discussion  of  an  Irish  parliament, 
and  with  all  these  engines  of  terror  still  suspended  over 
our  heads  it  is  again  submitted  to  them." 

But  eloquence  and  truth  and  justice  could  not  hope 
to  prevail  over  a  bought  and  paid  for  parliament,  and 
all  these  bitter  assaults  and  invectives  of  Plunkett  were 
received,  for  the  most  part,  by  Castlereagh  in  un- 
ruffled silence. 

The  stage  was  now  set  for  the  final  act.  After 
Plunkett  resumed  his  seat  one  of  the  Castle  spokes- 
men began  an  attack  upon  Plunkett  which  was  never 
finished  after  the  speaker  caught  the  contemptuous 
sneer  upon  the  face  of  the  orator.  And  after  this  man 
concluded,  Henry  Grattan,  worn  and  ill,  who  had  hur- 
ried to  Dublin  in  the  hope  of  stemming  the  tide,  was 


Sir  T.  Lawrence,  Pinx. 


Viscount  Castlereagh 


LORD   PLUNKETT  191 

all  but  carried  into  the  house  when  even  the  hardened 
Castlereagh  followed  the  example  of  the  entire  house 
in  rising  to  his  feet  as  a  tribute  to  the  indomitable 
patriot.  By  taking  his  place  beside  Plunkett,  Grattan 
recognized  him  as  the  head  of  the  opposition  he  him- 
self had  so  often  led.  He  spoke  for  two  hours,  sit- 
ting. The  vote  w^as  taken.  The  government  won 
with  a  majority  of  forty-two.  And  in  that  majority 
history  has  read  of  the  corrupt  activity  of  Lord  Castle- 
reagh during  the  recess. 

The  rest  is  briefly  told.  The  government  hurriedly 
followed  up  its  advantage  and  the  parliament  of  Ire- 
land passed  from  existence.  The  work  of  Plunkett 
had  failed  in  that  he  had  been  unable  to  prevent  the 
purchase  of  a  parliament;  but  his  immortal  speeches 
of  protest  have  been  a  heritage  to  posterity  in  Ireland, 
and  have  been  echoed  from  generation  to  generation, 
until  the  world  has  come  to  understand  the  infamy  of 
the  transaction.  Lord  Castlereagh  passed  from  Ire- 
land to  a  political  career  in  England.  His  last  action 
was  to  push  through  parliament  an  act  suspending 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  Ireland.  One  August 
day,  twenty-two  years  after  the  union,  he  cut  his 
throat.  His  despotic  principles  had  made  him  hated 
in  England  as  in  Ireland,  and  the  multitude  assembled 
at  Westminster  Abbey,  shouted  execrations  on  his 
coffin  as  it  was  removed  from  the  hearse.  It  was  Lord 
Byron  who  expressed  the  universal  verdict  in  the  lines : 

"So  he  has  cut  his  throat?    He?    Who? 
The  man  who  cut  his  country's  long  ago." 

The  end  of  Lord  Clare  was  quite  as  miserable.   His 


192  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

biographer,  O'FIannlgan,  has  damned  him  with  the 
epitaph:  "He  was  the  pivot  on  which  all  the  move- 
ments of  the  Castle  turned,  the  center  from  which  all 
its  schemes  and  designs  radiated;  his  words  were 
strong  as  written  law  with  a  succession  of  administra- 
tions." Clever,  courageous,  eloquent  beyond  any  of 
the  other  tools  of  the  Castle,  he  won  the  admiration 
and  commendation  of  Pitt  only  to  shock  his  master 
later  on  by  the  brutality  of  his  proposals.  He  was  a 
slight  delicate  man  but  haughty  and  insolent.  His 
character  speaks  from  the  canvas  of  Hamilton.  The 
union  accomplished,  the  disreputable  work  done,  Pitt 
had  no  further  use  for  his  tool,  and  Clare's  brief  ex- 
perience in  the  English  house  of  lords  was  one  of 
isolation.  He  died,  disappointed  and  embittered,  one 
year  after  the  union,  and  was  buried  with  much  pomp 
in  St.  Peter's  churchyard,  Dublin.  As  his  remains 
were  being  conveyed  to  the  grave,  the  people  in  the 
streets,  as  in  the  case  of  Castlereagh,  hooted  the  ex- 
pression of  their  hate  and  horror.  He  died  despised 
in  Ireland. 

After  the  fall  of  the  parliament  Plunkett  appears 
to  have  had  some  difficulty  in  adjusting  himself  to 
the  new  order  of  things.  It  probably  appealed  to  him 
in  the  light  of  a  personal  calamity,  for  the  celebrity 
and  notoriety  he  had  attained  during  the  battle  over 
the  union  had  made  him  a  national  hero.  The  con- 
summation of  the  union  dimmed  his  prospects.  Dub- 
lin became  for  a  season  as  melancholy  as  a  deserted 
banquet  hall.  The  parliament  house,  now  closed, 
loomed  dismally  like  a  sepulcher.  The  town  houses  of 
famous  members  of  the  late  parliament  were  closed 


LORD    PLUNKETT  193 

and  society  underwent  an  eclipse.  There  seemed  no 
possibility  of  the  restoration  of  the  parliament  except 
through  revolution,  and  to  measures  of  violence 
Plunkett  was  then,  as  ever  afterward,  a  bitter  enemy. 
For  a  time  he  is  said  to  have  meditated  migration 
either  to  England  or  the  United  States.  Fortunately 
for  his  peace  of  mind  his  legal  practise  suffered  no 
diminution,  and  in  time  he  appears  to  have  recovered 
his  spirits  and  to  have  become  reconciled  to  the  union 
— a  reconciliation  which  ultimately  became  so  complete 
as  to  have  deprived  him  of  much  of  the  popularity  he 
had  won. 

Nothing  has  done  so  much  to  injure  his  reputation 
among  his  countrymen  as  his  unfortunate  participa- 
tion in  the  prosecution  of  Robert  Emmet.  The  fact 
that  he  was  soon  aftenvard  appointed  solicitor-general 
has  given  all  too  much  ground  for  suspecting  that  his 
bitter  attack  upon  the  unfortunate  martyr  was  in- 
tended as  an  olive  branch  to  the  government.  It  is 
but  just  to  say  however  that  his  course  at  this  time 
was  in  strict  conformity  with  the  principles  of  his 
lifetime — his  insistence  upon  constitutional  methods 
of  opposition  and  his  abhorrence  of  any  policy  sug- 
gestive of  disorder.  As  time  went  on,  however,  he  ap- 
peared to  depart  more  and  more  from  his  original 
attitude  until  at  length  we  find  him  holding  office  under 
the  same  Pitt  who  had  planned  the  union,  entering 
into  the  closest  relations  with  the  Castlereagh  against 
whom  he  had  hurled  his  invectives,  and  becoming  one 
of  the  most  ardent  of  imperialists.  He  was  never  per- 
mitted to  forget  his  oath  to  swear  his  children  to  an 
eternal  enmity  to  the  invaders  of  the  freedom  of  his 


194  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

country,  especially  when  he  accepted  a  lucrative  posi- 
tion under  the  government  and  found  easy  berths  for 
some  of  these  same  children. 

When  he  entered  the  imperial  house  of  commons  in 
1807,  on  the  solicitation  of  Lord  Grenville,  with  whom 
he  was  politically  affiliated  throughout  his  subsequent 
career,  the  determining  factor  appears  to  have  been 
his  desire  to  serve  his  country  on  the  emancipation 
proposition.  From  the  moment  he  took  the  oath  until 
the  passage  of  the  Relief  bill  in  1829  he  labored  un- 
ceasingly and  effectively  to  strike  the  civil  shackles 
from  the  limbs  of  his  Catholic  fellow  countrymen,  and 
his  eloquence  contributed  largely  toward  softening  the 
Protestant  animosities  of  England  and  the  elimination 
of  prejudices.  While  he  was  working  assiduously  in 
the  house  of  lords  and  Grattan  in  the  commons,  O'Con- 
nell  was  essentially  the  leader  about  whose  career 
must  be  woven  the  story  of  the  successful  fight.  The 
work  of  Plunkett,  however,  was  of  inestimable  value 
to  the  cause.  His  speech  in  favor  of  Catholic  rights 
delivered  in  1813  was  characteried  by  Castlereagh  as 
one  "never  to  be  forgotten;"  that  of  1821  was  pro- 
nounced by  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  "stand  nearly  the  high- 
est in  point  of  ability  and  eloquence  of  any  ever  heard 
in  the  house."  We  shall  see  that  the  determining  cause 
of  the  final  victory  w^as  the  genius  of  O'Connell.  Too 
much  credit  can  not  be  given  to  Plunkett,  who  fought 
the  battle  in  the  very  house  of  the  enemies  of  Ireland, 
and  through  his  tact  and  eloquence  compelled  the 
capitulation  of  an  ancient  prejudice  and  dissipated  an 
ancient  fear.  After  the  passage  of  the  Relief  bill  his 
appearances  in  the  house  of  peers  became  less  frequent 
and  finally  ceased  altogether. 


LORD    PLUNKETT  195 

III 

Upon  his  appointment  as  chancellor  of  Ireland  in 
1830,  Lord  Plunkett  entered  upon  the  last  phase  of 
his  career — the  last  and  least  creditable.  A  great  law- 
yer, he  was  not  a  great  judge.  As  the  years  went  by 
he  was  removed  more  and  more  from  the  view  of  the 
public,  and  long  before  his  retirement  he  had  ceased 
to  attract  attention.  He  was  a  butterfly  embalmed  in 
a  rich  ointment.  Eleven  years  later  he  found  that 
notwithstanding  his  often  reiterated  assertion  that 
England  had  learned  how  to  treat  Ireland  as  an  equal, 
he  was  to  England  nothing  but  an  Irishman.  After 
his  distinguished  services,  at  an  hour  when  he  was 
considered  the  greatest  living  son  of  the  green  isle, 
he  was  shamefully,  ruthlessly,  thrust  aside  and  lit- 
erally driven  from  the  bench.  The  wound  never 
healed.  An  old  man  now,  he  set  out  upon  his  travels, 
and  lingered  long  in  Rome,  where  he  found  the  classic 
atmosphere  extremely  fascinating.  Then  he  returned 
to  Ireland  and  took  up  his  residence  at  his  beautiful 
country  home  at  Old  Connaught,  situated  under  the 
Sugar-loaf  mountain  on  the  border  of  the  county  of 
Wicklow.  Hither  he  had  often  turned  even  during 
the  days  of  his  greatest  activity.  Hither  many  a  time 
had  Grattan  driven  from  his  place  a  few  miles  distant 
for  an  evening  under  the  roof  of  the  great  orator. 
Here  Sir  Walter  Scott  lingered  for  several  days  while 
enjoying  the  surrounding  scenery.  Occasionally  he 
would  go  to  London  for  an  evening  at  Holland  House, 
but  he  preferred  to  remain  at  Old  Connaught  sur- 
rounded by  his  children  and  grandchildren  and  friends. 
Sometimes  in  his  melancholy  moments  he  would  drive 


196  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

to  a  near-by  mountain  whence  he  could  look  down 
upon  the  Four  Courts  of  Dublin  in  the  hazy  distance; 
and  often  he  would  drive  along  the  margin  of  the  bay 
of  Bantry,  pausing  to  chat  with  the  children  who  had 
been  taught  to  look  with  reverence  upon  the  old  man 
who  had  become  as  a  child  again.  His  mind  lost  its 
cunning  before  his  body  lost  its  strength  and  the  last 
years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  intellectual  twilight.  At 
length,  on  January  fourth,  1854,  in  his  ninetieth  year 
— more  than  half  a  century  after  his  marvelous  phil- 
ippics against  Castlereagh,  and  a  quarter  of  a  century 
after  the  completion  of  his  work  for  Catholic  emanci- 
pation, he  died.  He  was  buried  in  the  Mount  Jerome 
cemetery,  near  Dublin,  and  his  bust  was  set  up  in  the 
Four  Courts  of  Dublin. 

If  Lord  Brougham,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Lord  Castle- 
reagh and  many  of  their  contemporaries  were  ac- 
ceptable critics  of  oratory.  Lord  Plunkett  was  one  of 
the  very  greatest  orators  of  modern  times.  We  can 
readily  believe  from  the  descriptions  that  have  been 
handed  down  to  us  that  something  of  the  impression 
he  invariably  made  upon  his  hearers  may  have  been 
due  to  his  imposing  physical  appearance.  He  was  a 
man  of  commanding  height  and  compactly  built,  sug- 
gesting the  most  unusual  powers  of  physical  endurance. 
His  face  was  coarse,  blunt  and  harsh,  the  sort  of  face 
capable  of  dominating  a  mob.  His  forehead  was  high 
and  broad  and  in  moments  of  mental  exertion  was 
deeply  lined.  His  eyes  were  not  notably  expressive, 
although  they  are  described  by  some  who  heard  him 
in  some  of  his  greater  efforts  as  shining  with  a  steady 
steel-like  luster.  He  appears  to  have  been  parsimonious 
with  his  gestures,  and  to  have  delivered  many  of  his 


LORD    TLUNKETT  197 

most  telling  passages  standing  immobile  as  a  statue. 
His  favorite  gesture  was  unique  and  consisted  in  rais- 
ing both  arms  above  his  head,  holding  them  in  that 
position  for  a  moment  and  bringing  them  down  to- 
gether at  the  close  of  a  period  with  an  overwhelming 
air  of  finality.  His  voice  was  not  one  of  the  attractive 
phases  of  his  eloquence  and  seems  to  have  been  rather 
harsh,  cold,  metallic.  Strangely  enough  the  most  sat- 
isfactory picture  of  Plunkett  in  action  was  painted  in 
a  poem,  by  Bulwer  Lytton,  which  is  so  graphic  and 
spirited  as  to  be  an  essential  part  of  any  adequate  com- 
ment upon  his  oratorical  manner : 

"But  one  there  was  to  whom  with  joint  consent 

All  yield  the  crown  in  that  high  argument. 

Mark  where  he  sits ;  gay  flutters  round  the  bar, 

Gathering  like  moths  attracted  by  the  star. 

In  vain  the  ballet  and  the  ball  invite : 

E'en  beaux  look  serious — Plunkett  speaks  to-night. 

Mark  where  he  sits,  his  calm  brow  downward  bent, 

Listening,  revolving,  passive,  yet  intent. 

Revile  his  cause :  his  lips  vouchsafe  no  sneer; 

Defend  it :  still  from  him  there  comes  no  cheer, 

No  sign  without  of  what  he  feels  or  thinks  ; 

Within,  slow  fires  are  hardening  iron  links. 

Now  one  glance  round,  now  upward  turns  the  brow. 

Hushed  every  breath  ;  he  rises — mark  him  now. 

No  grace  in  feature,  no  command  in  height. 

Yet  his  whole  presence  fills  and  awes  the  sight. 

Wherefore  ?  you  ask.    I  can  but  guide  your  guess. 

Man  has  no  majesty  like  earnestness. 

His  that  rare  warmth — collected  central  heat — 

As  if  he  strives  to  check  the  heart's  loud  beat, 

Tame  strong  conviction  and  indignant  zeal. 

And  leave  you  free  to  think  as  he  must  feel. 

Tones  slow,  not  loud,  but  deep  drawn  from  the  breast. 

Action  unstudied,  and  at  times  suppressed ; 


198  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

But  as  he  neared  some  reasoning's  massive  close, 

Strained  o'er  his  bending  head  his  strong  arms  rose, 

And  sudden  fell,  as  if  from  falsehood  torn 

Some  grey  old  keystone  and  hurled  down  with  scorn. 

His  diction,  that  which  most  exalts  debate : 

Terse  and  yet  smooth,  nor  florid,  yet  ornate ; 

Prepared  enough ;  long  meditated  fact 

By  words  at  will  made  sinuous  and  compact 

With  gems  the  genius  of  the  lamp  must  win, 

Not  scattered  loose,  but  welded  firmly  in. 

So  that  each  ornament  the  most  displayed. 

Decked  not  the  sheathe,  but  hardened  more  the  blade 

Your  eye  scarce  caught  the  dazzle  of  the  show 

The  shield  and  cuirass  crashed  beneath  the  blow." 


So  much  for  the  purely  physical  phases  of  his  elo- 
quence. His  style  has  commanded  an  admiration  from 
English  critics  that  has  been  withheld  from  the  greater 
portion  of  Irish  orators.  Indeed  his  style  does  not 
contain  the  slightest  resemblance  to  any  of  the  other 
great  Irish  orators  treated  in  this  work.  Some  critics 
have  compared  the  grave  and  serious  eloquence  of  some 
of  his  passages  dealing  with  history  to  the  finest  pages 
of  Hallam;  and  in  the  philosophical  reasoning,  the 
marvelous  range  of  his  erudition,  the  purity  of  his  dic- 
tion, and  the  dignity  and  decorum  of  his  rhetoric  he 
probably  suggests  either  Burke  or  Macaulay  more  than 
does  any  other  speaker.  We  shall  see  a  little  later  in 
one  citation  that  in  moments  of  emotion  he  resembles 
Fox. 

In  his  introduction  to  the  biography  of  Lord 
Plunkett  by  David  Plunkett,  Lord  Brougham,  one  of 
England's  greatest  masters  of  eloquence,  summarizes 
his  view  of  Plunkett's  art.  "There  never  w^as  a  more 
argumentative  speaker,"  he  wrote,  "or  one  more  diffi- 


LORD    PLUNKETT  199 

cult  to  grapple  with  or  answer ;  and  the  extraordinary 
impression  produced  by  him  was  caused  by  the  whole 
texture  of  his  speeches  being  argumentative;  the 
diction  plain  but  forcible,  the  turn  often  epigrammatic; 
the  figures  as  natural  as  they  w^ere  unexpected ;  so  that 
what  had  occurred  to  no  one  seemed  as  if  every  one 
ought  to  have  anticipated  it.  But  all — strong  expres- 
sions, terse  epigram,  happy  figure — were  wholly  sub- 
servient to  the  purpose  in  view,  and  were  manifestly 
perceived  never  to  be  themselves  the  object,  never  to 
be  introduced  for  their  own  sake.  They  were  the 
sparks  throw^n  off  by  the  motion  of  the  engine,  not 
fireworks  to  amuse  by  their  singularity  or  please  by 
their  beauty;  all  was  for  use,  not  ornament;  all  for 
work,  nothing  for  display;  the  object  always  in  view, 
the  speaker  never,  either  of  himself  or  of  the  audi- 
ence." Supplementary  to  Brougham's  comments  we 
have  a  letter  written  by  Lord  Dudley  to  a  friend  in 
1819:  "By  the  by,  Plunkett  has  cut  a  great  figure 
this  year,"  he  wrote ;  "his  speech  in  answer  to  Mack- 
intosh was  among  the  most  perfect  replies  I  have 
ever  heard.  He  assailed  the  fabric  of  his  adversary, 
not  by  an  irregular  damaging  fire  that  left  parts  of  it 
standing,  but  by  a  complete,  rapid  systematic  process 
of  demolition,  that  did  not  leave  one  stone  standing 
upon  another." 

While  perfectly  true  that  Plunkett  never  permitted 
his  fancy  to  run  wild  the  impression  must  not  be  left 
that  he  gave  no  heed  to  ornamentation.  He  pos- 
sessed a  lively  imagination  which  he  carefully  sub- 
ordinated to  his  judgment.  That  he  never  underrated 
the  legitimate  part  that  beauty  of  Imagery  plays  in  all 
first-class  oratory  may  be  properly  assumed  from  the 


200  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

fact  that  he  prepared  with  infinite  care  many  of  his 
finest  figures,  using  them  as  "rhetorical  stepping 
stones,"  as  he  himself  told  Richard  Lalor  Shell. 

An  illustration  of  his  employment  of  figures  is 
found  in  the  following : 

"In  those  days  reform  approached  us  in  far  different 
guise ;  it  came  as  a  felon,  and  we  resisted ;  it  now  comes 
as  a  creditor ;  we  admit  the  debt  and  only  dispute  on  the 
instalments  by  which  it  shall  be  paid." 

One  of  his  most  famous  figures  was  employed  In  an 
argument  to  the  court  In  a  case  where  the  documents 
conferring  an  original  title  on  his  client,  having  been 
lost,  his  case  rested  chiefly  upon  long  and  unques- 
tioned possession  of  the  property. 

"Time,"  he  said,  "while  with  one  hand  he  mows  down 
the  muniments  of  our  titles,  with  the  other  metes  out 
those  portions  of  durations  which  render  unnecessary  the 
evidence  he  has  swept  away." 

There  are  little  gems  of  imagery  scattered  all  through 
his  speeches — unpretentious  because  so  naturally  em- 
ployed. Thus,  speaking  of  the  English  soldier  he  says, 
"He  never  would  raise  his  sword  to  stab  the  liberties 
of  Ireland,  for  he  knows  that  the  life  blood  of  Eng- 
land must  issue  through  the  wound."  Describing  a 
speech  of  Pitt  with  "a  couple  of  powdered  lacqueys  of 
epithets  waiting  upon  every  substantive;"  thus  refer- 
ring to  the  action  of  Castlereagh  in  Ireland  after  the 
pronouncement  of  Pitt  he  said,  "after  the  great  le- 
viathan has  concluded  his  tumblings,  a  young  whale 
puts  up  his  nostrils,  and  spurts  his  blubber  on  this 


LORD   PLUNKETT  201 

country;"  tHus  his  description  of  the  house  of  com- 
mons because  of  its  vacillation  on  the  question  of 
emancipation  as  "suffering  with  hot  and  cold  fits;" 
thus  his  reference  to  Elizabeth's  refusal  to  establish  a 
system  of  espionage  as  a  refusal  "to  make  windows  to 
look  into  the  hearts  of  her  subjects;"  and  thus  his 
striking  image  in  the  enumeration  of  the  immortals  of 
English  politics  who  had  supported  emancipation  for 
the  Catholics — "supported  by  these  great  names,  and 
not  encountered  by  one  which  has  had  sufficient  buoy- 
ancy to  float  along  the  stream  of  time." 

There  have  been  few  modern  orators  with  a  greater 
capacity  for  invective.  One  example  of  this  power 
practised  upon  Castlereagh  is  especially  worth  noting. 
The  most  biting  and  hurtful  feature  is  to  be  found  in 
the  last  four  words,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Lady 
Castlereagh,  a  woman  of  extraordinary  beauty,  who 
looked  down  from  the  gallery,  was  childless  though 
married  for  several  years : 


"The  example  of  the  prime  minister  of  England,  in- 
imitable in  its  vices,  may  deceive  the  noble  lord.  The 
minister  of  England  has  his  faults.  He  abandoned  in 
his  later  years  the  principle  of  reform,  by  professing 
which  he  had  attained  the  early  confidence  of  the  people 
of  England,  and  in  the  whole  of  his  political  conduct 
he  has  shown  himself  haughty  and  intractable;  but  it 
must  be  admitted  that  he  is  endowed  by  nature  with  a 
towering  and  transcendent  intellect,  and  that  the  vastness 
of  his  resources  keeps  pace  with  the  magnificence  and 
unboundedness  of  his  projects.  I  thank  God  that  it  is 
much  more  easy  for  him  to  transfer  his  apostacy  and 
his  insolence  than  his  comprehension  and  his  sagacity; 
and  I  feel  the  safety  of  my  country  in  the  wretched  fee- 
bleness of  her  enemy.    I  can  not  fear  that  the  constitu- 


202  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

tion  wliicH  has  been  founded  by  the  wisdom  of  the  ages 
and  cemented  by  the  blood  of  patriots  and  heroes  is  to 
be  smitten  to  its  center  by  such  a  green  and  sapless  twig 
as  this." 

Another  illustration  of  his  powers  of  denunciation, 
his  description  of  the  tour  of  Lord  Cornwallis  in 
search  of  union  signatures,  may  also  be  used  as  indi- 
cating that  rapidity  of  style  of  which  Fox  alone  is  a 
rival : 


"It  is  painful  to  dwell  upon  that  disgraceful  expedition. 
No  place  too  obscure  to  be  visited,  no  rank  too  low  to 
be  courted,  no  threat  too  vile  to  be  employed ;  the  coun- 
ties not  sought  to  be  legally  convened  by  their  sheriffs ;  no 
attempt  to  collect  the  unbiased  support  of  the  intelligent 
and  independent  part  of  the  community;  public  ad- 
dresses sought  for  from  petty  villages,  and  private  sig- 
natures smuggled  from  public  counties — and  how  pro- 
cured ?  By  the  influence  of  absentee  landlords,  not  over 
the  affections,  but  over  the  terrors  of  their  tenantry. 
By  griping  agents  and  revenue  officers.  And  after  all 
this  mummery  had  been  exhausted;  after  the  luster  of 
royalty  had  been  tarnished  by  this  vulgar  intercourse  with 
the  lowest  of  the  rabble;  after  every  spot  had  been  se- 
lected where  a  paltry  address  could  be  procured,  and 
every  place  avoided  where  a  manly  sentiment  could  be 
encountered;  after  abusing  the  names  of  the  dead  and 
forging  the  signatures  of  the  living;  after  polling  the  in- 
habitants of  the  jail,  and  calling  out  against  parliament 
the  suffrages  of  those  who  did  not  sign  them  until  they 
had  got  their  protection  in  their  pockets ;  after  employing 
the  revenue  officer  to  threaten  the  publican  that  he  should 
be  marked  as  a  victim,  and  the  agent  to  terrify  the  shiv- 
ering tenant  that  his  turf-bog  would  be  withheld ;  after 
employing  your  military  commanders,  the  uncontrolled 
arbiters  of  life  and  death,  to  hunt  the  rabble  against  the 
constituted  authorities ;  after  squeezing  the  lowest  dregs 


LORD    PLUNKETT  203 

of  a  population  of  near  five  millions  you  obtained  about 
five  thousand  signatures,  three-fourths  of  whom  affixed 
their  names  in  surprise,  t'error  or  total  ignorance  of  the 
subject;  and  after  all  this  canvass  of  the  people,  and 
after  all.  this  corruption  wasted  on  the  parliament,  and 
after  all  your  boasting  that  you  must  carry  the  measure 
by  a  triumphant  majority,  you  do  not  dare  to  announce 
the  subject  in  the  speech  from  the  throne." 

While  not  entirely  devoid  of  pathos  and  humor  a 
study  of  his  speeches  fails  to  disclose  any  partiality 
for  the  use  of  either.  His  few  humorous  passages 
are  a  trifle  clumsy  and  his  most  pathetic  passages  on 
the  death  of  Grattan  w^ere  never  completed  because 
of  the  violence  of  his  emotions.  He  was  incapable  of 
the  artistry  of  tears. 

Lord  Plunkett  was  unfortunate  in  the  subjects 
treated  in  his  speeches.  Had  he  had  the  opportunity  to 
treat  of  such  subjects  as  occupied  the  genius  of  Ed- 
mund Burke,  the  mastery  of  his  treatment  and  the 
chaste  character  of  his  eloquence  would  have  given  to 
his  orations  a  permanent  value  they  do  not  now^  pos- 
sess. His  majestic  eloquence  expended  in  behalf  of 
emancipation,  while  novel  at  the  time  of  its  delivery, 
now,  in  this  more  liberal  and  better  day,  seems  the 
expression  of  indisputable  and  universally  conceded 
truths — much  ado  about  nothing.  Consequently  these 
speeches  are  only  possessed  of  a  certain  historical 
value.  They  are  torches  illuminating  the  dark  day 
that  has  passed  from  the  calendar.  His  two  striking 
speeches  against  the  union  will  be  read  long  after  those 
on  emancipation,  or  as  long  as  lovers  of  liberty  find 
pleasure  in  lingering  over  the  history  of  the  battles 
that  have  been  fought  for  its  preservation. 


ROBERT  EMMET 

The  Insurrection  of  1803 

THERE  was  a  dearth  of  political  activity  in 
Ireland  from  the  destruction  of  the  Irish  parlia- 
ment, in  1800,  until  about  1816,  when  O'Connell 
began  to  organize  the  people  for  the  emancipation 
battle.  During  the  greater  part  of  this  period  the  ac- 
knowledged leaders  of  Ireland  were  fighting  the  bat- 
tles of  their  country,  as  best  they  could,  within  the 
walls  of  Saint  Stephens,  across  the  channel.  This 
period  is  immortal  in  Irish  history  however  because 
of  one  thrilling  episode — the  insurrection  of  Robert 
Emmet.  The  numerous  children  of  Erin  who  have 
paid  the  penalty  of  their  love  of  country  upon  the 
scaffold  have  reached  the  heart  of  the  Irish  race  to  an 
even  greater  degree  than  the  splendid  characters  who 
have  successfully  fought  her  battles  and  attained  re- 
sults, and  died,  after  the  fashion  of  gentlemen,  in  their 
beds.  Emmet  accomplished  less  perhaps  than  any 
other  of  the  idols  of  Ireland.  His  mistakes  were  more 
glaring,  his  weaknesses  more  appalling,  and  possibly 
the  results  of  his  ill-timed  insurrection  were  more  dis-_ 
astrous  to  the  fortunes  of  his  country.  The  secret  of 
the  universal  love,  which  hallows  him,  lies  in  the  fact 
that  he  had  scarcely  attained  manhood  when  he  made 

204 


ROBERT   EMMET  205 

the  vicarious  sacrifice,  and  that  his  heart  was  right. 
And  so  he  is  tenderly  called  "the  child  of  the  heart 
of  Erin."  In  thousands  of  cottages  throughout  the 
world,  one  of  the  treasured  possessions  is  a  crude 
green  print  of  a  boyish  figure  making  his  appeal  "to 
time  and  to  eternity  and  not  to  men."  One  thing  he 
did  in  the  few  days  allotted  to  him — he  taught  the  sons 
of  Ireland  how  to  die,  and  by  his  dramatic  appeal  to 
the  imagination  of  mankind,  centered  the  world's  at- 
tention on  the  cause  of  his  unhappy  country.  The  pa- 
thetic and  inspiring  story  of  his  death  will  never  fade. 
The  pen  of  Moore  has  so  sweetly  sung  his  requiem  that 
the  music  lingers  on  and  on.  The  genius  of  Irving 
still  wrings  from  even  cynics'  eye  the  tears  of  com- 
passion as  they  peruse  the  story  of  The  Broken  Heart. 
He  has  no  monument — but  he  needs  none.  Even  the 
spot  where  he  lies  buried  is  enveloped  in  mystery — it 
is  enough  to  know  that  he  lies  in  Irish  ground.  Only 
one  of  his  speeches  has  been  preserved — but  every  Irish 
mother  teaches  it  to  her  children.  Thus,  when  others 
who  did  more  have  been  forgotten  or  are  but  vaguely 
remembered,  the  pulse  of  every  son  and  daughter  of 
the  green  isle  of  romance  and  tragedy  will  quicken  at 
the  mention  of  the  name  of  Robert  Emmet. 


The  story  of  Emmet's  life  and  genius  is  shrouded 
in  more  of  mystery  than  that  of  the  other  popular  he- 
roes and  orators  of  Ireland.  His  biographers  have 
written  tenderly  and  lovingly  of  his  brief  career,  but 
even  the  best  of  these  have  left  us  in  the  dark  regard- 
ing some  of  the  most  important  periods  of  his  life. 


206  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

With  the  exception  of  the  fragmentary  recollections 
of  Tom  Moore,  all  that  has  been  known  of  his  life  was 
incorporated  many  years  ago  in  the  rather  pretentious 
biography  of  Doctor  ]\iadden.  The  subsequent  Mem- 
oirs of  the  Emmet  family  by  Doctor  Emmet  have 
thrown  no  additional  light  of  a  positive  nature  upon 
the  hidden  years.  The  sketch  of  the  Countess  D'Haus- 
sonville  is  but  a  touching  tribute  predicated  upon  Mad- 
den's  story. 

He  was  born  of  heroic  stock.  His  father,  an  emi- 
ment  physician,  practised  in  the  south  of  Ireland  dur- 
ing the  greater  part  of  his  life,  but  finally  settled  in 
Dublin  where  Robert,  his  seventeenth  child,  was  born, 
on  March  fourth,  1778.  He  was  as  fortunate  in  his 
home  environment  as  in  his  birth.  The  father  was  a 
man  of  superior  attainments.  His  character  was  in 
keeping  with  his  education.  Beginning  his  Dublin 
career  as  a  governmental  placeman,  holding  the  posi- 
tion of  state  physician,  and  practising  in  the  families 
of  the  coterie  of  the  Castle,  he  finally  enrolled  himself 
with  the  patriot  party,  and,  with  a  characteristic  con- 
sistency, relinquished  his  lucrative  positions  in  the 
state.  The  erstwhile  Tory  developed  into  one  of  the 
most  uncompromising  of  patriots,  and  it  was  at  his 
knee  that  his  youngest  child  was  impregnated  with 
that  passionate  love  of  Ireland  which  was  to  lead  to 
his  death  upon  the  scaffold. 

Of  the  period  which  intervened  between  the  cradle 
and  the  college  we  have  but  meager  information.  He 
was  first  sent  to  the  school  of  a  Mr.  Oswald  which  was 
noted  for  its  superior  mathematical  training,  and  then 
transferred  to  the  celebrated  school  of  Samuel  Whyte, 
where  Richard  B.  Sheridan,  Thomas  Moore  and  other 


ROBERT   EMMET  207 

famous  Irishmen  received  their  preliminary  education. 
He  later  attended  the  school  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Lewis 
in  Camden  Street.  The  rapidity  of  his  progress  ap- 
pears in  the  fact  that  in  his  fifteenth  year  he  was 
enrolled  as  a  student  at  Trinity  College. 

While  few  colleges  have  produced  so  many  men  of 
extraordinary  brilliancy,  it  seems  from  contemporary 
testimony  that  none  other  of  the  students  of  Trinity 
has  ever  made  such  a  profound  impression  by  the 
brilliancy  of  their  mentality  as  did  Emmet.  Though 
highly  imaginative  and  fond  of  poetry  he  was  sur- 
passingly strong  in  mathematics  and  positively  bril- 
liant in  chemistry.  It  was  not  his  superiority  in  these 
studies  however  that  caused  him  to  stand  out  so  pre- 
eminently among  his  fellows.  Very  early  in  his  college 
career  he  gave  evidence  of  that  inspiring  eloquence 
which  was  destined  to  enliven  the  debating  societies 
of  the  college  and  to  call  down  upon  his  head  the  dis- 
approving frown  of  the  Castle.  The  country  at  this 
time  was  in  a  ferment  of  insurrection.  The  flagrant 
wrongs  of  Ireland  were  calling  loudly  for  redress,  and 
surface  indications  justified  the  fear  that  the  patriots 
were  preparing  to  make  their  appeal  to  the  sword. 
The  governmental  functionaries  realized  that  a  crisis 
was  approaching,  and  were  sleeping  on  their  arms. 
The  agitation  throughout  the  country  gave  a  nervous 
energy  to  the  w^atch fulness  of  the  authorities.  It  was 
reserved  for  the  youthful  Emmet  to  carry  the  defiant 
attitude  of  the  nationalists  into  the  sacred  conservative 
precincts  of  the  college  and,  through  the  magnetic 
brilliancy  of  his  eloquence,  to  arouse  the  fighting  in- 
stincts of  the  students. 

This  was  made  possible  through  debating  societies 


208  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

with  which  Emmet  Immediately  affiliated.  The  au- 
thorities had  strictly  forbidden  the  discussion  of  con- 
temporary politics.  With  rare  ingenuity  Emmet  found 
a  way  around  this  "prohibition.  Through  analogy  and 
insinuation  he  preached  the  doctrine  of  resistance  to 
tyranny,  preached  it  so  persistently  and  effectively 
that  even  conservative  Trinity  became  permeated  with 
it.  The  fame  of  the  orator  spread  among  the  people 
of  the  city,  and  finally  called  for  the  consideration  of 
the  Castle.  At  this  time  there  was  little  in  Emmet's 
appearance  to  suggest  the  agitator.  In  the  classroom 
and  on  the  campus  his  modesty  of  demeanor,  his  ap- 
parent lack  of  ambition,  his  inanimate  brow  and  rather 
ordinary  physical  aspect  discouraged  the  idea  that  he 
was  at  all  dangerous.  It  was  when  he  spoke  that  he 
underwent  a  transformation.  His  eyes  flashed,  his  en- 
tire countenance  was  suddenly  and  strangely  illumi- 
nated, his  physical  mediocrity  miraculously  took  on  the 
imposing  features  of  conscious  power,  his  voice  rang 
with  an  emotion  that  quickly  communicated  to  his 
hearers,  and  he  seemed  for  the  moment  the  very  per- 
sonification of  Ireland — glowing  at  the  recollection  of 
her  departed  glories,  burning  in  the  contemplation  of 
her  wrongs.  No  one  who  heard  him  at  Trinity  ever 
forgot  the  effect  of  his  eloquence.  A  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury after  his  death  the  Reverend  Archibald  Douglas, 
then  one  of  the  most  polished  pulpit  orators  of  Dublin, 
said  that  "so  gifted  a  creature  does  not  appear  in  a 
thousand  years."  And  after  having  become  famihar 
with  the  classic  orators  who  held  forth  at  Westminster, 
and  heard  all  the  most  eloquent  men  of  his  time,  Tom 
Moore,  in  looking  back  upon  the  speeches  of  the  mar- 
tyr, declared  that  he  had  never  heard  loftier  or  purer 


Robert   Emmet 

From  Commerford's  Portrait 


ROBERT    EMMET  20? 

eloquence  "as  well  from  its  own  exciting  power  as 
from  the  susceptibility  with  which  his  audience  caught 
up  every  allusion  to  passing  events." 

Unfortunately  none  of  these  speeches  in  their  en- 
tirety has  come  down  to  us  and  we  are  compelled  to 
accept  the  judgment  of  the  orator's  contemporaries. 
His  method  of  injecting  politics  into  the  discussions 
of  the  students  was  adroit.  On  one  occasion  the  ques- 
tion submitted  was  as  to  whether  complete  freedom  of 
discussion  is  essential  to  the  well-being  of  a  good  and 
virtuous  government.  There  was  dynamite  in  the 
very  question,  especially  at  a  time  when  editors  who 
dared  disturb  the  complacency  of  the  Castle  by  the 
publication  of  unwelcome  truths  were  being  driven  to 
bankruptcy  and  thrown  into  prison.  Only  a  little  while 
before  Curran  had  vainly  sought  to  save  Rowan  and 
Finnerty  from  the  vengeance  of  the  state.  In  advocat- 
ing the  affirmative  in  this  debate,  Emmet  discoursed 
eloquently  of  ancient  tyrannies,  cleverly  mirroring  lo- 
cal conditions  in  his  pictures  of  the  infamies  of  the  past, 
and  then,  in  an  impetuous  burst  of  defiance,  declaring 
it  the  duty  of  the  state  to  permit  the  freest  discussions, 
and  significantly  closing  with  the  suggestion  that 
where  such  freedom  was  curtailed  it  "was  up  to  the 
people  to  draw  practical  conclusions  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  government  and  to  act  upon  their  resolves." 

We  have  another  striking  instance  of  his  methods 
drawn  from  the  memories  of  Tom  Moore.  The  so- 
ciety had  under  discussion  the  question  as  to  the  rela- 
tive effect  of  a  democracy  and  an  aristocracy  in 
advancing  the  causes  of  science  and  education,  and 
Emmet,  with  more  than  his  customary  brilliancy 
ardently  espoused  the  cause  of  the  democracy.     On 


210  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

this  occasion  he  spoke  like  one  inspired,  with  a  rapidity 
of  utterance,  a  wealth  of  illustration,  and  a  passionate 
intensity  that  entranced  his  fellow  students,  among 
whom  was  the  poet.  Not  content  with  recounting  the 
encouragement  held  forth  to  literature  by  the  republics 
of  antiquity,  he  audaciously  took  the  new  republic  of 
France  as  an  illustration.  This,  within  itself,  was,  at 
that  time,  scarcely  less  than  treason.  Pitt  was  pre- 
paring to  grapple  with  the  people  across  the  channel, 
and  all  the  conservative  forces  of  England  were  en- 
listed in  the  war  against  what  was  termed  the  irre- 
ligious rabble  of  Paris.  Even  Burke  had  taken  up  his 
pen  to  voice  his  horror  at  the  execution  of  the  queen. 
The  effect  was  therefore  magical  when  the  orator, 
after  referring  to  the  act  of  Csesar  in  carrying  with 
him  across  the  river  his  commentaries  and  his  sword, 
reached  a  dramatic  climax  in  the  startling  exclamation : 

"Thus  France  at  this  time  swims  through  a  sea  of 
blood ;  but  while  in  one  hand  she  wields  the  sword  against 
her  aggressors,  with  the  other  she  upholds  the  interest  of 
literature,  uncontaminated  by  the  bloody  tide  through 
which  she  struggles." 

On  another  occasion  the  club  had  under  discussion 
the  question  whether  a  soldier  is  always  obliged  to  obey 
the  commands  of  his  officer.  This  gave  Emmet  the 
opportunity  to  preach  insubordination,  a  crime  at  that 
time  unspeakable.  He  declared  implicit  obedience 
"degrading  to  human  nature,"  and  closed  by  drawing 
a  vivid  word  picture  of  a  soldier  who  at  the  behest  of 
his  superiors,  had  fallen  in  the  ranks  of  the  army  of 
the  oppressor  rushing  into  the  presence  of  his  Maker 
with  the  pitiful  exclamation,  "Oh  God,  I  know  not 
why  I  have  done  this." 


ROBERT    EMMET  211 

One  more  quotation  will  suffice  as  indicating  the 
general  trend  of  the  college  orations  that  subjected  a 
mere  boy  to  the  espionage  of  a  powerful  government. 
In  one  of  his  speeches  Emmet  set  forth  the  doctrine 
that  had  already  become  the  dominating  thought  of 
his  life: 

"When  a  people  advancing  rapidly  in  civilization  and 
the  knowledge  of  their  rights  look  back  after  a  long  lapse 
of  time  and  perceive  how  far  the  spirit  of  their  govern- 
ment has  lagged  behind  them,  what  then,  I  ask,  is  to  be 
done  by  them  in  such  a  case  ?  What,  but  to  pull  the  gov- 
ernment up  to  the  people  ?" 

It  was  inevitable  that  such  doctrine,  advanced  with 
such  marvelous  eloquence  and  effect,  should  make  a 
profound  impression  outside  the  college  and  elicit  the 
condemnatory  frown  of  the  authorities.  The  faculty 
was  not  in  sympathy  with  the  rebellious  spirit  of  the 
student,  and  finally  the  plan  was  devised  of  sending  a 
much  older  man  of  great  ability  into  the  debating  so- 
ciety to  answer  Emmet.  This  was  the  highest  tribute 
that  the  government  could  pay.  No,  not  the  highest, 
but  that  also  was  reserved  for  him.  Late  in  the  year 
1797  the  Fellows  of  the  college,  acting  no  doubt  upon 
a  suggestion  from  the  Castle,  determined  to  drive  from 
the  institution  all  the  students  responsible  for  the  "dis- 
semination of  treasonable  doctrines.'*  In  April  of  the 
following  year  came  the  infamous  "visitation"  to  the 
university.  The  Earl  of  Clare,  whose  repulsive  picture 
has  been  handed  down  to  posterity  in  the  famous 
characterization  of  Curran,  very  properly  presided 
over  the  proceedings.  Emmet  was  ordered  to  appear 
before  the  committee  and  divulge  the  names  of  all  the 


212  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

students  suspected  of  being  United  Irishmen.  Emmet 
an  informer!  The  idea  was  grotesque.  Nor  was  it 
expected  that  he  would  thus  degrade  himself.  It  was 
the  intention  to  base  his  expulsion  on  his  anticipated 
refusal.  But  again  the  committee  had  failed  to  gage 
its  man.  The  young  orator  after  a  consultation  with 
his  father  sent  a  letter  of  refusal  to  appear  in  which 
he  denounced  the  committee  with  the  utmost  scorn  for 
attempting  to  degrade  the  students  of  Trinity  to  the 
repulsive  level  of  informers  and  demanded  that  his 
name  be  stricken  from  the  roll  of  students.  Thus  his 
career  in  college  was  not  more  luminous  than  his  man- 
ner of  leaving  it. 

The  expulsion  of  Emmet  only  made  a  stronger  ap- 
peal to  the  imaginations  of  the  students  who  were  with 
few  exceptions  devoted  to  him.  We  have  it  from 
Charles  Phillips,  the  orator,  that  "every  one  loved, 
every  one  respected  him,  and  his  fate  made  a  profound 
impression  on  the  university."  His  expulsion  came  too 
late — he  had  already  sown  the  seed  and  it  fell  on  fer- 
tile ground. 

It  was  early  in  the  year  of  his  expulsion  that  he 
espoused  the  principles  of  the  United  Irishmen,  al- 
though the  records  fail  to  disclose  that  he  ever  became 
an  active  member  of  the  organization.  Doubtless  he 
fed  his  rebellious  mind  while  in  college  on  the  seditious 
philosophy  heard  at  the  meetings  in  his  brother's  house. 
No  doubt  he  had  reached  the  conclusion  that  only 
through  force  could  the  wrongs  of  his  people  be 
righted.  This  may  be  gathered  from  an  incident  in 
which  Moore,  the  poet,  figured  while  both  were  stu- 
dents at  Trinity.  An  unsigned  letter  had  appeared  in 
the  press  denouncing  the  lord  chancellor  with  a  ferocity 


ROBERT    EMMET  213 

that  seemed  almost  an  invitation  to  assassination.  Its 
publication  created  a  profound  impression.  It  was 
the  custom  in  those  days  for  Emmet  and  Moore  to  take 
long  strolls  out  into  the  country,  and  on  one  of  these 
rambles  the  poet  confided  to  his  friend  that  he  had 
written  the  letter.  With  ineffable  gentleness,  the  orator 
expressed  his  pleasure  at  the  patriotic  sentiments,  but 
coupled  it  with  a  regret  that  its  publication  had  called 
attention  to  the  political  tendencies  of  the  university 
just  when  the  work  of  organization  was  favorably 
progressing.  The  poet  assumed  from  this  that  Emmet 
had  even  then  decided  that  the  time  for  talk  had  passed 
and  that  the  time  to  act  had  come.  On  another  occa- 
sion when  Moore  w^as  at  the  pianoforte  playing  Let 
Erin  Remember  the  Days  of  Old,  Emmet  sprang  to 
his  feet  and  with  flashing  eyes,  passionately  exclaimed : 
**0h,  that  I  were  at  the  head  of  twenty  thousand  men 
marching  to  that  air." 

Thus  at  twenty,  Robert  Emmet  was  a  revolutionist. 
His  mind  and  heart  had  been  centered  on  his  country. 
The  heroes  who  had  died  for  her  and  slept  in  unconse- 
crated  ground,  instead  of  deterring  him  by  the  horror 
of  their  death  and  burial,  inspired  him  with  the  spirit 
of  emulation.  His  imaginative  mind  had  found  em- 
ployment in  the  writing  of  poetry  during  his  college 
days,  and  while  none  of  his  poems  is  worthy  of  his 
fame,  one,  written  on  Arbor  Hill,  the  site  of  a  number 
of  executions  for  treason,  commands  a  melancholy 
interest  in  view  of  the  fate  of  its  author : 

"Unconsecrated  is  this  ground. 
Unblessed  by  holy  hands — 
No  bell  here  tolls  its  solemn  sound 
No  monument  here  stands. 


UBRAFV 


214  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

But  here  the  patriot's  tears  are  shed 
The  poor  man's  blessing  given — 
These  consecrate  the  virtuous  dead, 
These  waft  their  fame  to  heaven." 

Such  was  the  Robert  Emmet  of  '98 — before  he  had 
attained  his  majority.  A  mere  boy — and  yet  the  bril- 
liancy of  his  eloquence  had  converted  a  conservative 
university  into  a  hot  bed  of  sedition,  commanded  the 
admiration  of  the  metropolis,  and  sent  a  tremor 
through  the  occupants  of  the  Castle.  A  mere  boy — 
and  yet  he  had  sat  in  the  council  of  the  United  Irish- 
men as  they  planned  the  fight  for  the  freedom  of  Ire- 
land. A  mere  boy — and  yet  his  dreams  of  leading  an 
awakened  people  to  the  attainment  of  their  liberty  by 
the  light  of  a  victor's  sword.  A  mere  boy — and  yet 
so  old  that  the  government  issued  a  warrant  for  his 
arrest,  and  drove  him  in  exile  from  the  land  of  his 
nativity. 

II 

But  was  he  of  necessity  an  exile?  The  revolution 
of  '98  with  its  resultant  effects  upon  the  family  for- 
tunes of  the  Emmets,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  a  war- 
rant had  been  issued  for  the  arrest  of  Robert,  justifies 
the  assumption  that  his  prolonged  absence  from  Ire- 
land was  not  entirely  of  his  own  volition.  The  failure 
of  the  government  to  execute  the  warrant  when  it  had 
the  youthful  suspect  within  its  power  is  one  of  the 
mysteries  that  has  not  been  solved.  After  the  arrest 
of  Robert's  insurrectionary  brother  and  his  incarcera- 
tion at  Fort  George  we  see  Robert  journeying  thither 
in  the  company  of  his  sister-in-law;  and  after  having 


-r^«» 


'^f^*H 


ROBERT    EMMET  215 

seen  and  conferred  with  his  brother  we  find  him  going 
directly  to  the  continent  where  his  three  years'  sojourn 
will  perhaps  always  be  a  mystery.  We  are  assured 
that  he  spent  the  summer  of  1800  in  Switzerland,  and 
that  he  later  traveled  through  southern  France  and  a 
short  distance  across  the  Spanish  border,  and  ulti- 
mately settled  in  Paris.  It  is  scarcely  less  than  mar- 
velous that  so  little  has  been  disclosed  of  his  life  in 
the  French  capital.  He  must  have  written  many  let- 
ters to  his  family  and  friends,  but  only  a  few  of  these, 
addressed  to  the  Marquis  de  Fontenay  in  Ireland,  have 
been  rescued  from  oblivion. 

It  is  positively  known  that  his  original  purpose  in 
lingering  in  Paris  was  to  await  the  liberation  of  his 
brother  with  whom  he  had  practically  determined  to 
emigrate  to  the  United  States.  Later  developments 
in  Ireland  however  altered  his  plans — and  yet  he  re- 
mained in  Paris.  There  have  been  many  explanations 
offered  for  his  continued  presence  there.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  plans  and 
purposes  of  the  members  of  the  United  Irishmen  who 
had  escaped  detection  and  arrest  and  that  his  position 
in  France  was  in  the  nature  of  an  unofficial  plenipo- 
tentiary through  whom  the  rebellious  organization 
communicated  with  Napoleon  as  to  the  feasibility  of 
an  invasion  of  Ireland.  We  know  positively  that  he 
did  succeed  in  getting  an  audience  with  Napoleon,  that 
he  was  afterward  in  conference  with  Talleyrand  on 
several  occasions,  and  that  he  was  not  favorably  im- 
pressed with  either.  He  doubted  the  disposition  of 
either  the  dictator  or  his  diplomatic  adviser  to  serve 
the  Irish  in  the  way  desired,  although  he  was  persuaded 
that  Talleyrand  was  not  adverse  to  the  establishment  of 


216  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

an  independent  republic  In  Ireland.  The  only  solace 
that  he  appears  to  have  found  in  his  conferences  with 
the  French  chiefs  was  the  assurance  that  an  early  and 
lasting  peace  between  France  and  England  did  not 
enter  into  the  plans  of  Napoleon. 

Meanwhile  he  devoted  his  time  to  a  careful  study 
of  military  science,  and  numerous  books  on  the  sub- 
ject, bearing  his  marginal  notes,  are  still  extant.  He 
doubtless  clung  to  the  hope  that  the  evolution  of 
events  would  one  day  place  him  at  the  head  of  the 
twenty  thousand  men  suggested  by  Moore's  playing 
of  the  inspiring  Irish  ballad.  There  is  nothing  au- 
thentic to  justify  the  conclusion  that  anything  more 
serious  than  his  studies  occupied  his  time  during  his 
residence  in  Paris.  However  it  was  inevitable  that 
something  of  romance  should  have  been  woven  out  of 
the  mystery  that  closed  in  about  him,  and  the  story 
has  been  told  that  he  devoted  a  portion  of  his  time  to 
traveling  about  in  various  disguises  in  an  effort  to  or- 
ganize the  Irish  exiles  at  that  time  living  in  France. 

The  prospects  for  an  immediate  resuscitation  of  the 
insurrectionary  movement  in  Ireland  was  exceedingly 
dark  during  the  greater  part  of  Emmet's  residence  in 
France.  The  authorities  of  Dublin  Castle  were  ruling 
with  an  iron  hand.  The  island  was  known  to  be  honey- 
combed with  spies  and  no  man  knew  his  brother.  The 
procrastination  and  coldness  of  Napoleon  held  forth 
no  promise  of  exterior  assistance.  The  patriot's  move- 
ment in  Ireland  lay  broken  and  bleeding  and  seemingly 
doomed  to  die.  It  is  this  condition  which  makes  all 
the  more  incomprehensible  the  sudden  feverish  anxiety 
of  Emmet  to  return  to  his  native  Isle  and  place  himself 
at  the  head  of  a  new  rebellion. 


ROBERT    EMMET  217 

\Vhile  the  whole  truth  will  probably  never  be  dis- 
closed there  is  every  reason  for  asserting  that  some 
time  during  the  latter  part  of  his  sojourn  in  Paris  he 
was  assured  by  unknown  emissaries  that  Ireland  was 
ripe  for  an  uprising.  The  idea  of  the  insurrection  of 
1803  w^as  not  born  in  the  brain  of  Emmet,  but  was 
planted  there  by  persons  who  have  never  been  exposed. 
He  was  undoubtedly  trapped  to  his  death.  In  seek- 
ing for  a  motive  one  has  a  right  to  take  into  consid- 
eration the  conditions  of  the  times  as  they  related  to 
Ireland's  traditional  foe  across  the  channel.  The  ports 
of  England  wxre  all  but  closed  by  Napoleon,  whose 
fleets  had  very  nearly  annihilated  the  commerce  of  his 
island  enemy,  and  the  masses  of  the  people,  suffering 
in  pride  and  purse,  were  in  that  restless,  nervous,  ir- 
ritable condition  that  governments  find  dangerous. 
The  traditional  specific  for  such  domestic  ills  has  al- 
ways been  a  counteracting  excitement.  It  was  mani- 
festly important  to  Pitt  that  something  should  be  done 
to  divert  attention  from  the  miserable  fiasco  that  he 
had  made  of  his  war  on  France.  It  was  just  at  this 
time  that  messengers  -were  despatched  to  Paris  carry- 
ing the  word  to  Emmet  that  seventeen  counties  in  Ire- 
land were  prepared  to  rise  in  insurrection  the  moment 
a  successful  attempt  should  be  made  in  Dublin. 

Who  sent  these  men  to  Emmet  ? 

Regarding  this  phase  of  the  Emmet  insurrection  we- 
are  not  left  wholly  without  grounds  at  least  upon 
which  to  base  a  conjecture.  Many  years  after  the 
young  martyr  had  been  in  his  unknow-n  grave  Doctor 
Emmet,  who  was  w-orking  upon  his  Memoirs  of  the 
Emmet  family,  was  granted  permission  to  look  over 
some  sjate  papers  of  the  period  of  1798  to  1804  that 


218  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

were  said  to  be  among  the  London  records.  Upon 
investigation  it  was  found  that  the  papers  desired  had 
been  transferred  to  Dublin  to  be  investigated  and  prop- 
erly classified.  At  that  time  Sir  Bernard  Burke,  Ul- 
ster king-at-arms,  was  in  charge  of  these  papers  at 
Dublin  Castle  and  the  request  of  Doctor  Emmet  for 
permission  to  peruse  them  was  denied,  with  the  ex- 
planation that  their  dangerous  nature  had  been  called 
to  the  attention  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  who 
had  ordered  them  sealed,  placed  in  a  separate  box  and 
protected  from  the  scrutiny  of  the  world.  This  sealed 
box,  with  the  order  of  the  duke,  was  shown  to  Doc- 
tor Emmict.  Time  went  on,  and  a  personal  friend- 
ship sprang  up  between  Burke  and  Emmet,  and  Burke 
gave  his  friend  an  intimation  of  the  character  of  the 
hidden  papers.  Among  them  were  letters  that  were 
exchanged  between  the  government  at  Dublin  and  the 
ministry  of  Pitt  during  the  period  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  union,  in  which  the  infamies  of  the  meth- 
ods resorted  to  were  shown  to  have  been  far  worse 
than  was  imagined. 

The  most  startling  revelations,  however,  related  to 
the  insurrection  of  1803.  Among  the  papers  was  a 
letter,  which  had  been  read  by  Burke,  from  William 
Pitt  to  Marsden,  secretary  in  Ireland,  instructing  him 
to  foment  another  insurrection  and  directing  him  to 
send  messengers  to  Paris  to  approach  Robert  Emmet. 
Had  such  a  project  been  possible  to  the  brain  of  Pitt, ' 
the  selection  of  Emmet,  whose  revolutionary  tenden- 
cies were  notoriously  pronounced,  whose  enthusiastic 
credulity  was  well  known,  and  who  was  even  then 
under  an  indictment,  would  have  been  natural.  These 
papers  showed  that  governmental  agents  were  sent  to 


ROBERT    EMMET  219 

Paris  with  misinformation ;  that  upon  Emmet's  return 
the  poHce  facilitated  his  plans  in  every  way,  and  that 
the  government  was  thoroughly  cognizant  of  every 
step  he  took  from  the  moment  of  his  arrival  until  the 
fateful  hour.  It  is  now^  a  matter  of  history  that  Lord 
Hardwick,  who  w^as  at  the  head  of  the  Irish  govern- 
ment, knew  absolutely  nothing  about  the  proposed  in- 
surrection until  the  very  evening  of  the  rising,  while 
Marsden  and  McAVickham,  the  chief  secretary,  had 
long  been  in  full  possession  of  information  regarding 
it.  The  story  related  by  Doctor  Emmet  and  partly 
corroborated  by  history  justifies  the  conclusion  that 
Emmet  was  the  victim  of  a  Machiavellian  plot,  as 
dastardly  as  was  ever  incubated  in  the  mind  of  a  me- 
dieval despot.  A  few  years  after  Doctor  Emmet's 
conversation  with  Burke,  and  after  the  Whigs  came 
into  power,  another  effort  was  made  to  reach  the  pa- 
pers— but  they  were  gone ! 

Of  all  this,  however,  Emmet  was  in  blissful  ig- 
norance. His  last  days  in  France  were  the  most  joy- 
ous of  his  existence.  He  foresaw,  as  he  thought,  the 
dawning  day  of  retribution  for  Ireland.  He  saw  him- 
self as  he  had  seen  himself  in  dreams,  at  the  head  of 
his  twenty  thousand  men,  marching  to  victory  to  the 
tune  of  Let  Erin  Remember  the  Days  of  Old.  He 
saw  the  fruits  of  victory  bursting  from  the  soil  that 
had  been  fertilized  by  the  blood  of  the  martyrs.  A 
few  days  previous  to  his  return  home,  while  dining 
w^ith  Lord  Cloncurry  and  discussing  the  wrongs  of 
his  country,  his  features  glowed  w^ith  enthusiasm  and 
excitement,  while  the  perspiration  burst  through  the 
pores  and  ran  down  his  forehead.  And  all  the  while 
the  saturnine  smile  of  statesmen,  sailing  under  the  col- 


220  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

ors  of  Christianity,  was  fixed  upon  him,  while  cynic 
hands  were  engaged  in  the  preparation  of  the  grave 
to  which  was  doomed  the  boy  patriot  and  all  his 
dreams.  Confident,  enthusiastic  and  happy,  Emmet 
turned  toward  home. 


Ill 


On  reaching  his  native  isle  Emmet  hastened  to  Ca- 
sino, the  beautiful  country  home  of  his  father,  and 
there  he  remained  quietly  for  a  short  while.  He  is 
described  as  possessing  handsome  features  and  a  gen- 
tlemanly appearance.  He  was  about  five  feet  eight 
inches  in  height,  slight  in  person,  though  capable  of 
great  physical  exertion  and  much  endurance.  His  high 
broad  forehead  and  small,  bright  and  expressive  eyes 
gave  earnest  of  his  mentality,  the  most  striking  of 
his  features  being  his  nose,  which  was  remarkably  thin 
and  straight.  At  this  time  there  was  nothing  in  his 
manner  to  set  him  off  from  the  crowd  aside  from  the 
glow  which  emanated  from  him  in  moments  of  patri- 
otic excitation. 

He  soon  found  himself  surrounded  by  seeming  sym- 
pathizers, who  may  be  divided  into  three  classes:  the 
spies  of  the  government,  the  fashionable  young  men 
about  town  who  saw  in  his  enthusiasm  and  credulity 
an  opportunity  to  clothe  and  feed  themselves,  and  the 
sincere  followers  of  the  revolutionary  idea. 

He  converted  his  own  fortune  into  money,  which 
was  translated  into  pikes,  guns  and  ammunition.  In 
this  last,  at  the  critical  hour,  he  was  pitifully  deficient. 
He  established  his  depots,  where  he  stored  the  muni- 
tions   of    war,    and    consulted    with    his    emissaries. 


ROBERT    EMMEX  221 

Buoyed  up  by  his  hopes,  he  was  not  wholly  blind  to 
"the  difficulties  that  beset  his  path.  About  this  time 
he  wrote : 

"I  have  but  little  time  to  look  at  the  thousand  diffi- 
culties that  lie  between  me  and  the  completion  of  my 
wishes.  That  those  difficulties  will  likewise  disappear  I 
have  ardent,  and,  I  trust,  rational  hopes ;  but  if  it  is  not 
to  be  the  case,  I  thank  God  for  having  gifted  me  with  a 
sanguine  disposition.  To  that  disposition  I  run  from  re- 
flection ;  and  if  my  hopes  are  without  foundation — if  a 
precipice  is  opening  under  my  feet  from  which  duty  will 
not  suffer  me  to  turn  back,  I  am  grateful  to  that  san- 
guine disposition  which  leads  me  to  the  brink  and  throws 
me  down,  while  my  eyes  are  still  raised  to  the  visions  of 
happiness  that  my  fancy  formed  in  the  air." 

It  was  Emmet's  plan  to  hold  off  the  uprising  until 
August  on  the  theory  that  England  would  at  that  time 
be  attacked  on  her  own  shores  and  would  be  rendered 
helpless  in  Ireland.  The  cruel  fate  that  pursued  his 
every  movement  intervened.  An  accidental  explosion 
at  one  of  his  depots  aroused  the  public  curiosity  and 
impelled  him  to  advance  the  day  of  action.  Plans 
were  laid  for  July  twenty-third. 

These  plans  contemplated  the  support  of  three  hun- 
dred men  from  Wexford,  four  hundred  from  Kildare, 
two  hundred  from  Wicklow — all  of  whom  were  vet- 
erans in  insurrectionary  war.  In  addition  to  these  he 
counted  upon  the  cooperation  of  at  least  three  thou- 
sand in  Dublin.  He  expected  no  less  than  two  thou- 
sand men  to  assemble  at  Costigan's  Mills — the  rallying 
point.  Then  came  the  succession  of  heart-breaking 
disappointments.  The  financial  aid  promised  failed  of 
materialization.     The  fashionable  young  men  about 


222  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

town  who  had  fattened  on  his  credulous  bounty  slunk 
away,  laughing  in  their  sleeves.  The  men  he  sent  out 
to  buy  guns  kept  the  money  and  never  returned.  The 
Wicklow  men  failed  to  appear  because  of  their  officers. 
The  men  from  Kildare,  upon  whom  he  particularly 
depended,  came  into  Dublin  the  night  before  and  left 
again  because  of  a  traitorous  lie  to  the  effect  that  the 
rising  had  been  postponed.  Owing  to  the  confusion 
and  the  crowded  condition  of  the  main  depot  the  fuses 
for  the  grenades,  which  had  been  laid  aside,  could  not 
be  found.  Through  an  accident  the  slow  matches  that 
had  been  prepared  were  mixed  with  those  that  were 
not,  and  thus  the  labor  went  for  naught.  Little  won- 
der that  he  cried  out  in  the  agony  of  his  soul :  "Had 
I  had  another  week — had  I  had  one  thousand  pounds 
— had  I  had  a  thousand  men,  I  w^ould  have  feared 
nothing." 

At  the  appointed  hour  but  eighty  men  were  on  hand. 
Postponement  was  no  longer  a  matter  of  policy,  but 
necessity.  But  here  again  fate — or  was  it  treachery? 
• — intervened.  One  of  his  men  rushed  excitedly  into 
the  depot  shouting:  "The  soldiers  are  coming  down 
upon  us — we  are  lost.'*  Postponement,  a  moment  be- 
fore a  necessity,  was  no  longer  a  possibility. 

The  hour  had  come ! 

Calm,  smiling  confidently,  Emmet  hurriedly  put  on 
his  green  and  gold  uniform,  ordered  the  distribution 
of  arms,  sent  up  a  rocket  to  notify  the  people  that 
the  time  had  come  for  the  attack  upon  the  Castle,  and 
at  the  head  of  eighty  men  he  sallied  forth,  waving  his 
sword  and  shouting:  "Come  on,  boys,  we'll  take  the 
Castle."  A  little  way  and  the  eighty  had  dwindled 
to  eighteen.    Then  the  army  was  augmented — it  gath- 


ROBERT    EMMET  223 

ered  the  denizens  of  the  underworld,  ever  ready  for 
an  excuse  to  pillage  and  murder — it  took  unto  itself 
the  canaille  from  the  drinking  places.  Down  the  street 
it  moved,  an  undisciplined  mass  of  impossible  mate- 
rial. The  gallant  boy  in  his  pathetic  uniform  of  green 
and  gold  attempted  vainly  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos. 
But  alas !  intoxication  knows  no  commander.  The 
army  became  a  mob.  The  spirit  of  patriotism  gave 
way  to  that  of  pillage — and  the  spirit  of  murder  came 
to  the  surface.  On  marched  Emmet,  waving  his  sword 
— far  in  the  lead — on  toward  the  Castle. 

An  old  man,  one  of  the  noblest  in  Ireland,  was 
pounced  upon  by  the  rabble,  dragged  from  his  carriage, 
pierced  with  pikes  —  and  Lord  Kilwarden's  blood 
blotted  the  story  of  the  insurrection. 

The  valiant  boy  heard  the  frightful  news  and 
paused,  disheartened.  Hurrying  back,  he  personally 
conducted  the  murdered  peer's  woman  companion  to 
a  place  of  safety,  and  in  the  contemplation  of  the  havoc 
wrought  and  the  murderous  mass  of  drunken  men  he 
read  the  failure  of  his  dream.  A  word  of  exhortation 
to  the  mob,  a  plea  that  the  crowd  disband,  and  with 
a  heavy  heart  Robert  Emmet,  with  a  few  of  his 
friends,  turned  and  rode  toward  the  green  hills  of 
Wicklow. 

And  over  the  tragedy,  which  embraced  the  broken 
heart  of  Emmet,  hovered  the  sinister  smile  of  the 
Castle. 


IV 


He  reached  the  fragrant  hills  of  Wicklow  in  safety 
— and  just  beyond  spread  the  welcoming  sea.    No  one 


224  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

knew  better  the  penalty  of  his  capture,  and  yet  he 
steadfastly  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  importunities  of 
his  friends  to  avail  himself  of  the  opportunities  to 
escape  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  Great  Britain.  Just 
below  him,  in  a  little  port  within  easy  access,  ^  fish- 
ing smack,  under  full  sail,  was  anchored,  and  he  was 
urged  to  save  himself,  but  he  refused  to  move.  A 
few  days  after  the  fateful  uprising  Anne  Devlin — of 
beautiful  memory — w^as  despatched  to  the  retreat  of 
the  outlaws  with  letters  for  Emmet.  She  found  him 
seated  in  an  unconcerned  manner  upon  the  hillside, 
still  wearing  his  uniform  of  gold  and  green.  To  her 
he  confided  the  secret  of  his  love  for  Sarah  Curran, 
and  his  determination  never  to  leave  Ireland  without 
at  least  having  the  opportunity  to  see  her  for  the  last 
time.  With  this  in  view  he  accompanied  Anne  on 
her  return  toward  Dublin,  leaving  her  just  before 
reaching  the  fashionable  suburb  of  the  capital  in  which 
the  Currans  lived. 

The  circumstances  under  which  these  two  lovers 
first  met  are  not  positively  known.  The  most  reason- 
able story  is  to  the  effect  that  the  brother  of  Sarah, 
who  was  a  college  mate,  brought  them  together  at  The 
Priory.  Certain  it  is  that  Emmet  became  a  frequent 
visitor  at  the  beautiful  suburban  place  of  the  famous 
advocate,  who  was  quick  to  comprehend  his  intellectual 
brilliancy.  Not  until  within  a  comparatively  short 
time  before  the  insurrection  did  Curran  become  aware 
of  anything  unusual  in  the  frequency  of  Emmet's  vis- 
its. Until  the  very  last  he  assumed  that  the  youth 
:was  merely  one  of  his  own  admirers.  The  first  in- 
Hmation  Curran  had  of  the  sentimental  attachment 
between  his  daughter  and  the  promising  youth  from 


ROBERT    EMMET  225 

Trinity  came  in  the  discovery  of  their  love-letters  by 
the  authorities  after  his  arrest. 

To  write  of  Sarah  Curran  in  a  cold  chronological 
manner  is  impossible.  Her  ardent  and  lasting  devo- 
tion to  her  lover — a  devotion  which  drove  her  penni- 
less from  beneath  her  father's  roof,  and  deified  the 
memory  of  the  martyr — deserves  to  take  its  place 
along  with  the  classic  passions  of  the  centuries.  She 
had  inherited  something  of  her  father's  genius,  much 
of  his  temperament  including  his  spirit  and  tendency 
to  melancholy.  We  have  a  picture  of  her  in  her 
twelfth  year,  pensive,  subdued,  and  with  an  intellectual 
development  beyond  her  years.  Hers  had  been  a  her- 
itage of  sorrow.  Under  a  great  tree  on  the  lawn  of 
The  Priory  was  the  grave  of  a  younger  sister  for 
whom  she  had  entertained  a  deep  affection.  About 
this  time  occurred  the  tragedy  which  darkened  and 
embittered  her  father's  life — the  elopement  of  her 
mother,  to  whom  she  was  passionately  attached.  The 
great  orator,  who  retained  to  the  end  a  public  geniality, 
became  morose  in  the  privacy  of  his  home,  more  and 
more  detached  in  sympathy  from  his  family. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  she  met  Robert  Emmet. 
She  has  been  described  as  slight  in  figure  and  not  tall, 
with  the  dark  complexion  and  the  large,  dark  eloquent 
eyes  of  her  father,  and  with  a  look  "the  mildest,  the 
softest  and  the  sweetest  you  ever  saw."  We  know 
from  various  sources  that  she  had  a  beautiful  sing- 
ing voice.  The  few  letters  that  have  been  preserved 
indicate  a  brilliant  mind.  And  that  she  had  a  heart 
that  beat  in  ardent  sympathy  with  the  aspirations  of 
the  patriots  of  Ireland  is  shown  by  the  encouragement 
she  gave  her  lover. 


226  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Safe  for  the  time  in  Wicklow  hills,  Emmet  wrote 
to  Sarah,  urging  her  to  join  him  and  share  his  for- 
tunes in  the  land  beyond  the  sea.  The  fact  that  she 
refused  undoubtedly  resulted  in  his  apprehension  and 
execution,  and  it  was  a  realization  of  this  which 
haunted  her  to  her  grave.  Instead,  she  wrote  him  ten- 
derly of  her  duty  to  her  father  and  her  father's  fame, 
and  plead  with  him  to  seek  his  own  safety  in  flight 
across  the  waters.  At  the  very  time  that  Emmet  was 
trudging  back  from  the  Wicklow  hills,  under  cover 
of  the  night,  she  was  joyous  in  the  assurance  that  he 
had  reached  the  sea.  She  had  not  fathomed  the  depth 
of  his  devotion.  Her  letter  only  drew  him  back  within 
the  danger  zone,  and  within  a  few  days  after  the  in- 
surrection Emmet  was  living  in  the  house  at  Harold's 
Cross,  situated  between  Dublin  and  The  Priory. 
There  he  hoped  to  intercept  Sarah  on  her  way  to 
and  from  the  city.  But  he  was  doomed  to  fail- 
ure. Impatient  of  his  failure,  he  summoned  his 
faithful  Anne  and  despatched  her  with  a  message  to 
The  Priory — and  thus  Sarah  Curran  was  brought  to 
a  realization  of  what  she  had  done.  We  have  it  on 
the  word  of  the  messenger  that  when  these  letters 
were  slipped  into  her  hand  ''her  face  would  change 
so  you  would  not  know  her."  These  letters,  the  pas- 
sionate confessions  of  two  hearts,  were  destined  to 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  authorities — for  the  inevi- 
table spy  was  on  the  trail  t)f  the  patriot.  Just  who 
the  wretched  informer  was  the  world  will  never  know. 
Through  the  sensitive  sympathy  of  the  Castle  he  has 
been  permitted  to  escape  the  deep  damnation  of  his 
infamy.     He  received  the  price  of  his  dastardly  act 


ROBERT    EMMET  227 

but  was  spared  publicity.     Thus  Robert  Emmet  was 
apprehended  and  hurried  to  his  doom. 

In  the  gloom  of  his  prison  his  thoughts  wxre  cen- 
tered, not  upon  his  fate,  but  upon  the  unhappy  girl 
at  The  Priory.  His  prison  letters  to  her  never  reached 
their  destination. 

"My  love,  Sarah,"  he  wrote  to  her  brother,  "it  was  not 
thus  I  had  hoped  to  requite  your  affection.  I  did  hope 
to  be  a  prop  around  which  your  affection  might  have 
clung,  and  which  never  would  have  been  shaken ;  but  a 
rude  blast  has  snapped  it,  and  it  has  fallen  over  a  grave." 

Maddened  by  the  thought  that  she  had  unconsciously 
lured  her  lover  to  his  death,  horrified  at  the  suspicion 
the  discovery  of  her  letters  had  centered  upon  her 
father,  and  cringing  pitifully  under  the  scornful  re- 
proach of  her  family,  Sarah's  mind  suffered  an  eclipse. 
Thus  was  she  spared  the  terrors  of  the  closing  scenes. 
And  when  she  emerged  from  the  mental  darkness  that 
had  mercifully  closed  in  upon  her,  Robert  Emmet  had 
made  his  appeal  ''to  time  and  to  eternity  and  not  to 
man." 

Her  subsequent  story  has  been  touchingly  told  by 
Irving,  in  The  Broken  Heart,  and  Tom  Moore  has 
immortalized  her  ineffable  sorrow  in  the  exquisite 
lines.  She  Is  Far  from  the  Land  Where  Her  Young 
Hero  Sleeps.  After  a  little  while  she  gave  her  hand  to 
a  gallant  soldier  who  was  worthy  of  her,  but  only  after 
having  warned  him  that  her  heart  was  buried  in  the 
unconsecrated  grave  of  her  lover.  Irving  has  given 
us  a  significant  glimpse  of  her  at  a  masquerade,  where 
in  the  midst  of  the  gaiety  and  frills  she  wandered 


228  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

through  the  merry  throng,  insensible  to  their  laughter, 
until  at  length  she  sat  down  on  the  steps  of  a  plat- 
form and  ''began  with  the  capriciousness  of  a  sickly 
heart  to  warble  a  plaintive  air."  More  touching  still 
is  the  story  of  her  visit  to  the  studio  of  James  Petrie, 
who  had  made  a  court-room  sketch  of  Emmet.  The 
little  son  of  the  artist  was  alone  in  the  room  when  a 
lady  entered,  without  observing  him,  and  went  over 
to  the  portrait.  Lifting  her  veil,  she  stood  a  long 
while  in  unbroken  silence,  and  then  turning  with  an 
unsteady  step,  she  passed  to  the  opposite  end  of  the 
room,  where  she  pressed  her  head  against  the  wall, 
while  deep  passionate  sobs  shook  her  slender  form. 
A  little  while,  and  she,  too,  was  gone.  In  the  little 
graveyard  at  Newmarket  she  was  buried  and,  like  her 
lover,  no  monument  marks  the  spot  of  her  interment. 
Robert  Emmet  and  Sarah  Curran — they  share  in  a 
common  immortality.  In  the  history  of  Ireland, 
blood-stained  and  yet  beautiful,  they  are  the  Romeo 
and  Juliet  of  its  romance  and  tragedy. 


V 


In  the  little  court  room  in  Dublin  a  strange  and  mem- 
orable drama  was  enacted  on  the  nineteenth  of  Sep- 
tember, 1803.  The  miserable  wretches  who  had 
trapped  the  "son  of  the  heart  of  Erin"  designed  to 
drop  the  curtain  of  oblivion  upon  the  insurrectionary 
movement  of  Robert  Emmet.  The  room  was  packed 
with  the  curious,  and  among  them  were  many  whose 
hearts  beat  in  ardent  sympathy  with  the  defendant. 
There  sat  Lord  Norbury,  the  dismal  butcher  of  the 
crown,  who  was  wont  to  charge  against  a  patriot  de- 


ROBERT    EMMET  229 

fendant  with  all  the  savagery  of  a  Jeffries,  and  beside 
him  sat  Mr.  Baron  George,  and  Mr.  Baron  Daly.  It 
was  a  dramatic  scene.  The  young  defendant  had  only 
a  little  while  before  been  a  welcome  guest  in  the  most 
exclusive  drawing-rooms  of  Dublin,  and  the  metrop- 
olis was  familiar  with  the  marvelous  eloquence  of  the 
Trinity  student.  The  jury  selected  was  typical  of  the 
times — a  packed  jury,  a  jury  of  blood-letters — a  jury 
in  perfect  keeping  with  the  dignity  of  the  sycophant 
upon  the  bench.  The  attorneys  for  the  defense  had 
been  assigned  him,  and  among  them,  conspicuous  by 
his  absence,  was  the  one  majestic  genius  worthy  of 
such  a  scene — John  Philpot  Curran.  Deserted  by  his 
friends  and  compatriots,  even  one  of  the  attorneys  for 
the  gallant  boy  in  the  dock  turned  out  to  be  a  traitor 
and  a  spy ! 

Mr.  Standish  O'Grady  rose  to  open  the  indictment. 
The  testimony  for  the  prosecution  was  heard.  The 
hour  for  the  defense  struck.  Then  rose  one  of  the 
defendant's  counsel  with  the  announcement  that  no 
witnesses  would  be  called  for  Emmet — and  this  on  the 
direct  orders  of  the  defendant.  More  than  that,  no 
argument  would  be  made. 

The  audacious  determination  of  the  bey  in  the  dock 
startled  the  spectators,  startled  the  court,  and  jury,  and 
alarmed  the  special  prosecutor — who  sprang  to  his 
feet.  What !  Deprive  Plunkett  of  an  opportunity  to 
curry  favor  with  authority!  Nay,  Plunkett  would 
speak.  And  Plunkett  spoke.  Spoke  with  the  preci- 
sion and  brilliancy  that  gave  him  his  celebrity,  and  with 
the  bitterness,  acrimony  and  brutality  that  gave  him 
his  office  later  on.  Not  content  with  his  marshaling  of 
the  undisputed  facts  he  conjured  up  the  memory  of 


230  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Emmet's  father  with  which  to  upbraid  him,  and  closed 
with  the  memorable  curse. 

It  was  now  Lord  Norbury's  turn.  He  charged  the 
jury  with  his  accustomed  rancor  and  brutality. 

It  was  now  the  cue  for  the  packed  jury  and  it 
shouted  "Guilty."  The  attorney-general  asked  for  the 
judgment  of  the  court.  It  was  now  far  into  the  night. 
The  faint  glow  of  the  lamps  threw  a  sepulchral  gloom 
over  the  court  room.  The  prisoner  sat  in  his  place  un- 
moved, calm,  apparently  cold,  gazing  with  curiosity 
first  upon  Plunkett,  the  apostate,  and  then  upon  Nor- 
bury,  the  butcher.  The  attorney  for  Emmet  rose  and 
requested  that  judgment  be  reserved  for  the  morrow. 

"It  is  impossible  to  comply  with  the  request,"  re- 
sponded O' Grady.  Indeed,  the  attorney-general  de- 
served credit  for  the  moderation  of  his  reply  to  a  re- 
quest that  must  have  seemed  ludicrous  to  Norbury. 
Postpone  judgment  until  the  morrow?  And  only  ten 
o'clock  now?  Banish  the  thought — that  would  delay 
the  decapitation  of  the  prisoner  until  the  day  fol- 
lowing ! 

The  drama  was  hastening  to  the  curtain.  The  words 
of  the  clerk  of  the  court  were  heard  in  the  awed  court 
room. 

"What  have  you  therefore  to  say  why  judgment  of 
death  and  execution  should  not  be  awarded  against 
you  according  to  law  ?" 

With  flashing  eye  Robert  Emmet  rose  and  stepped 
forward  in  the  dock  in  front  of  the  bench. 


"My  lords,"  he  began,  in  a  clear  steady  tone,  "as  to 
why  judgment  of  death  and  execution  should  not  be 
passed  upon  me  I  have  nothing  to  say;  but  as  to  why 


ROBERT    EMMET  231 

my  character  should  not  be  relieved  from  the  imputations 
and  calumnies  thrown  out  against  it  I  have  much  to  say." 

Then  followed  the  most  remarkable  speech  that 
ever  reverberated  through  a  court  room.  It  echoed 
through  Ireland — it  was  destined  to  become  as  immor- 
tal as  the  spirit  of  liberty.  It  hfted  Robert  Emmet 
from  the  unconsecrated  dust  in  which  they  laid  him 
into  the  Pantheon  of  glory. 

The  majestic  roll  of  defiant  eloquence  caused  an 
uneasy  shufBing  among  the  government  functionaries, 
not  accustomed  to  hearing  the  brutal  truth  thundered 
in  their  very  ears  in  the  very  sanctuary  of  despotism. 
Walking  rapidly  about  in  the  dock  Emmet  was  pro- 
ceeding : 

"I  wish  that  my  memory  and  my  name  may  animate 
those  who  survive  me,  while  I  look  down  with  com- 
placency upon  the  destruction  of  that  perfidious  govern- 
ment which  upholds  its  domination  by  the  blasphemy  of 
the  Most  High — which  displays  its  power  over  man  as 
over  the  beasts  of  the  forest — w^hich  sets  man  upon  his 
brother,  and  lifts  his  hand  in  the  name  of  God  against 
the  throat  of  his  fellow  who  believes  or  doubts  a  little 
more  or  a  little  less  than  the  government  standard — a 
government  which  is  steeled  to  barbarity  by  the  cries  of 
the  orphans  and  the  tears  of  the  wddows  that  it  has 
made." 

At  this  Norbury  could  no  longer  restrain  his  innate 
brutality.  He  broke  in  upon  the  speaker  with  a  de- 
nunciation of  the  "mean  and  wicked  enthusiasts"  who 
felt  the  patriotic  passion  that  w^as  pouring  in  immortal 
eloquence  from  the  lips  of  the  doomed  boy.  Unruf- 
fled and  undisturbed  by  the  interruption,  Emmet  went 


232  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

on.    There  was  no  contrition  in  the  words  he  uttered 
— naught  but  exaltation. 

"Yes,  my  lords,"  he  said  with  a  smile,  "a  man  who 
does  not  wish  to  have  his  epitaph  written  until  his  coun- 
try is  liberated  will  not  leave  a  weapon  in  the  power  of 
envy;  nor  a  pretense  to  impeach  the  probity  which  he 
means  to  preserve  even  in  the  grave  to  which  tyranny 
consigns  him." 

Again  Norbury  cringed  at  the  mention  of  tyranny, 
and  another  attempt  was  made  to  interrupt  the  flow 
of  eloquence  that  could  not  but  leave  a  profound  im- 
pression upon  posterity.  Paying  no  heed  to  the  inter- 
ruption Emmet  proceeded : 

"What  I  have  spoken  was  not  intended  for  your  lord- 
ship, whose  position  I  commiserate  rather  than  envy — 
my  expressions  were  for  my  countrymen ;  if  there  is  a 
true  Irishman  present,  let  my  last  words  cheer  him  in 
the  hour  of  his  affliction — " 

Beside  himself  with  impotent  rage  Norbury  again 
broke  in  with  the  angry  assertion  that  he  did  not  sit 
there  to  hear  treason  uttered. 

"I  have  always  understood  it  to  be  the  duty  of  a  judge 
when  a  prisoner  has  been  convicted,"  said  Emmet  re- 
proachfully, "to  pronounce  the  sentence  of  the  law;  I 
have  also  understood  that  judges  sometimes  think  it  their 
duty  to  hear  with  patience  and  speak  with  humanity." 

The  "butcher  of  the  crown,'*  now  too  furious  for 
utterance,  sank  back  in  his  chair  while  the  orator  con- 
tinued with  a  denunciation  of  the  government  of  Ire- 
land which  was  destined  to  echo  for  a  century  in  the 


ROBERT    EMMET      .  233 

cottages  of  the  Irish  exiles  throughout  the  worid.  He 
walked  rapidly  in  front  of  the  railing  before  the  bench 
and  looked  Norbury  in  the  eye,  and  then  retired  as 
though  "his  body  as  well  as  his  mind  was  swelling  be- 
yond the  measure  of  his  chains."  With  his  left  hand 
outstretched  he  struck  the  palm  time  and  again  with 
the  two  forefingers  of  his  right  hand  to  add  emphasis 
to  his  rebuke. 

"As  men,  my  lord,  we  must  appear  at  the  great  day 
at  one  common  tribunal,  and  it  will  then  remain  for  the 
searcher  of  all  hearts  to  show  a  collective  universe  who 
was  engaged  in  the  most  virtuous  actions,  or  actuated  by 
the  purest  motives — my  country's  oppressors,  or — " 

Pricked  beyond  endurance  with  the  prodding  of  the 
orator,  Norbury  again  broke  in  with  the  brutal  de- 
mand that  the  doomed  man  cease.  With  flashing  eyes 
and  a  scornful  curl  of  the  lip  Emmet  suggested  that 
the  form  of  the  law  that  prescribed  that  he  be  asked 
why  sentence  should  not  be  pronounced  also  prescribed 
an  answer. 


"This  no  doubt  may  be  dispensed  with,"  he  said,  "and 
so  might  the  whole  ceremony  of  the  trial,  since  sentence 
has  already  been  pronounced  at  the  Castle,  before  your 
jury  was  empaneled ;  your  lordships  are  but  the  priests 
of  the  oracle,  and  I  submit;  but  I  insist  on  the  whole 
form." 


Thus  rebuked  by  one  who  knew  his  rights  and  pro- 
posed to  maintain  them  in  the  face  of  power,  Norbury 
impatiently  demanded  that  the  orator  proceed.  For  a 
3ybile  he  was  unmolested  as  he  entered  his  indignant 


234  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

denial  of  the  charges  made  relative  to  his  attitude  to- 
ward French  Intervention. 

"France,"  he  exclaimed,  "even  as  an  enemy,  could  not 
be  more  implacable  than  the  enemy  already  in  the  bosom 
of  the  country." 

Again  Norbury  burst  forth  with  a  demand  that  the 
prisoner  cease  with  his  treasonable  utterances,  only  to 
receive  upon  his  own  head  a  bitter  denunciation  for 
his  pains.  Unchecked  in  his  course,  Emmet  went  on 
with  his  excoriation  only  to  be  Interrupted  time  and 
again. 

"But  you,  too,"  he  charged,  "If  It  were  possible  to  col- 
lect all  the  innocent  blood  that  you  have  shed  in  your 
unhallowed  ministry  in  one  great  reservoir,  your  lordship 
might  swim  in  it." 

Hopeless  now  of  throwing  Emmet  Into  confusion  by 
his  brutal  Interruptions,  and  anxious  for  him  to  close, 
Norbury  sank  back  in  his  chair  disgusted.  Emmet 
went  on.  The  lamp  in  the  room  began  to  flicker,  and, 
with  his  eyes  upon  it,  the  gallant  youth  found  the  in- 
spiration for  his  peroration — a  peroration  more  fa- 
mous perhaps  than  any  that  ever  before  or  since  has 
fallen  from  the  lips  of  man. 

"My  lords,  you  are  Impatient  for  the  sacrifice — the 
blood  which  you  seek  is  not  congealed  by  the  artificial 
terrors  which  surrround  your  victim ;  it  circulates  warm 
and  unruffled  through  the  channels  which  God  created 
for  noble  purposes,  but  which  you  are  bent  to  destroy, 
for  purposes  so  grievous  that  they  cry  to  heaven.  Be 
yet  patient.     I  have  but  a  few  words  more  to  say.     I 


ROBERT    EMMET  235 

iam  going  to  my  cold  and  silent  grave;  my  lamp  of  life 
is  nearly  extinguished ;  my  race  is  run ;  the  grave  opens 
to  receive  me  and  I  sink  into  its  bosom.  I  have  but  one 
request  to  ask  on  my  departure  from  this  world — it  is 
the  charity  of  its  silence.  Let  no  man  write  my  epitaph: 
for,  as  no  man  who  knows  my  motives  dares  now  vindi- 
cate them,  let  not  prejudice  or  ignorance  asperse  them. 
Let  them  and  me  repose  in  obscurity  and  peace,  and  my 
tomb  remain  uninscribed  until  other  times  and  other  men 
can  do  justice  to  my  character;  when  my  country  takes 
her  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  then,  and  not 
until  then,  let  my  epitaph  be  written." 

As  he  sat  down  the  flickering  lamp  went  out ! 

It  was  now  almost  eleven  o'clock,  and  Norbury  zeal- 
ously pronounced  the  sentence  of  death.  A  woman, 
unknown  to  the  authorities,  hurried  forward  and 
pressed  a  sprig  of  lavender  into  the  doomed  man's 
hands.  He  w^as  pounced  upon  by  officers  and  the  sprig 
was  torn  from  him.  Thus,  insulted  even  on  the  brink 
of  the  grave,  he  was  hurried  from  the  court  room,  in 
which  Pitt  had  consummated  another  of  his  designs 
against  the  liberty  of  man,  and  consigned  to  prison  to 
await  the  morrow. 

But  the  speech  was  not  forgotten.  Torn  from  con- 
tact with  the  world  and  helpless  to  defend  himself,  the 
government,  on  the  following  day,  hastened  to  issue  its 
own  version  of  the  speech,  a  version  intended  to  alien- 
ate from  the  Irish  patriots  the  friendship  of  the 
French. 

It  was  a  dismal  procession  that  m^oved  through  the 
streets  of  Dublin  to  the  place  of  execution.  The 
doomed  man  was  placed  in  a  closed  carriage.  As  he 
was  driven  slowly  to  his  death,  accompanied  by  a 
strong  guard  of  infantry  and  cavalry,  the  spectators  in 


236  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

the  streets  stood  in  melancholy  silence.  Occasionally 
the  martyr  caught  the  eye  of  a  friend  and  smiled  his 
farewell.  In  his  hand  he  carried  a  last  message  to 
Sarah  Curran.  He  eagerly  scanned  the  crowd  for  a 
sympathetic  messenger.  At  length  he  beheld  a  com- 
passionate countenance,  and  at  a  sign  from  Emmet  the 
friend  rushed  forward.  The  message  was  dropped 
from  the  window  of  the  carriage,  and  the  man  caught 
it  from  the  pavement.  He  was  immediately  seized 
and  the  last  word  of  the  doomed  man  to  the  woman 
that  he  loved  was  taken  from  him,  and  after  being 
scanned  by  scoffing  eyes,  was  destroyed.  The  pro- 
cession moved  on.  At  length  the  carriage  stopped  at 
the  foot  of  the  scaffold.  Emmet  firmly  ascended  the 
platform.  No  sign  of  fear  was  betrayed  in  his  coun- 
tenance. Turning  to  the  crowd,  his  clear,  strong,  sil- 
very voice  was  raised  in  a  few  brief  words  of  farewell. 
The  work  of  death  was  quickly  done.  The  head  was 
immediately  struck  from  the  body.  The  hangman, 
who  had  trembled  at  his  work,  grasped  it  brutishly  by 
the  hair,  and  parading  along  the  front  of  the  gallows 
he  shouted : 

"This  is  the  head  of  a  traitor,  Robert  Emmet." 
And  thus,   quite  properly,   they  closed  the  dismal 
tragedy  with  a  lying  epilogue. 


yi 

DANIEL  O'CONNELL 

The  Fight  for  Catholic  Emancipation;  the  Fight  for  the 
Repeal  of  the  Union 

WHEN  Grattan  achieved  the  legislative  independ- 
ence of  Ireland  in  1782  he  proclaimed  the  birth 
of  "a  nation/*  As  a  matter  of  fact  Ireland  did  not 
begin  to  take  on  the  dignity  of  a  nation  until  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  parliament  of  the  days  of  Flood  and  Grattan  rep- 
resented but  an  insignificant  minority  of  the  people 
and  treated,  either  with  hostility  or  contempt,  the  vast 
majority.  This  majority  was  Ireland.  And  this  ma- 
jority was  pitiably  submerged,  reduced  by  govern- 
mental action  to  a  condition  of  pathetic  subserviency. 
From  the  enactment  of  the  penal  laws,  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland,  constituting  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  popu- 
lation, were  treated  with  less  consideration  by  the  rul- 
ing classes  than  the  beasts  of  the  fields.  They  had  no 
rights  that  any  one  was  bound  to  respect  Browbeaten, 
butchered,  robbed,  dispossessed,  proscribed  through 
centuries,  this  vast  mass  had  become  dispirited,  and 
apathetic. 

Flood  was  a  great  patriot — but  his  patriotism  con- 
templated the  continued  proscription  and  elimination 

237 


238  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

of  the  overwhelming  majority  of  his  countrymen; 
Lord  Charlcmont  was  a  magnificent  character,  big  in 
everything  but  the  bigotry  which  Impelled  him  to  op- 
pose all  concessions  to  the  Catholics;  Henry  Grattan 
would  have  taken  his  proscribed  countrymen  under  the 
protection  of  the  constitution,  but  his  advocacy  of  their 
claims  was  tender  of  the  prejudices  of  the  Protestant 
minority,  and  while  he  won  the  commendation  of  the 
leaders  of  the  m.ajority,  his  leadership  of  the  army  of 
toleration  failed  to  awaken  the  Catholic  masses.  The 
major  part  of  the  Irish  people  remained  an  inert  mass 
— helpless,  hopeless  and  afraid. 

Then  a  new  leader  appeared  in  Ireland  to  awaken 
and  move  the  sleeping  people.  His  marvelous  elo- 
quence gave  them  courage.  His  superb  organizing  ca- 
pacity converted  the  helpless  mass  into  a  militant  force 
before  which  the  empire  trembled.  He  made  The 
Irish  Nation. 

And  In  the  process  of  the  making  he  commanded 
the  attention  and  won  the  admiration  of  the  world. 
He  v/as  the  Mirabeau  of  the  open  spaces.  His  meet- 
ings have  never  been  equaled  In  numerical  greatness  In 
the  history  of  the  world.  He  spoke  to  hundreds  of 
thousands  and  his  word  was  law.  He  created  a  public 
opinion  that  could  not  be  put  down  by  bullets  or 
bayonets.  He  taught  the  world  the  possibilities  of  a 
peaceful  revolution.  He  was  the  first  great  agitator. 
Wendell  Phillips,  the  most  potential  agitator  In  Amer- 
ican history,  has  said  that  "the  cause  of  constitutional 
government  owes  more  to  him  than  to  any  other  polit- 
ical leader  of  the  last  two  centuries." 

Such,  in  brief.  Is  the  historical  status  of  Daniel 
O'Connell — one  of  the  most  Impressive  figures  of  all 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL  22>^ 

time,  one  of  the  most   fascinating  characters  in  all 
history. 

I 

It  seems  peculiarly  appropriate  that  even  O'Connell's 
birth  and  youth  should  have  been  dramatic.  He  sprang 
from  ancient  stock  and  from  battling  blood.  There  is 
much  of  the  heroic,  the  god-like,  in  the  legendary  story 
of  his  ancestry — a  story  stretching  back  into  the  most 
glorious  days  of  Erin's  history.  One  of  his  ancestors 
fought  at  the  head  of  a  regiment  for  James  II,  and 
only  laid  down  the  sword  when  the  monarch  fled  the 
country  and  gave  up  the  fight.  An  uncle  was  one  of 
the  dashing  figures  in  the  army  of  the  French  Bour- 
bons, and  was  loyal  to  the  old  regime  when  the  holo- 
caust came.  Indeed  the  O'Connells  were  a  loyal  brood 
• — devoted  to  king  and  church.  They  had  little  in  com- 
mon with  the  iconoclast. 

The  birth  of  Daniel  O'Connell  took  place  at  Car- 
hen,  in  the  county  of  Kerry,  on  August  sixth,  1775. 
Soon  after  his  birth  he  was  sent  to  the  wife  of  his 
father's  herdsman  in  the  Iveragh  mountains  and  there 
he  remained  for  four  years.  His  first  impressions 
were  of  the  wild  life  of  the  rugged  hills  and  the  simple, 
wholesome  home  of  the  mountaineer.  It  was  while 
with  the  herdsman  that  Paul  Jones,  in  command  of 
three  French  vessels,  arrived  off  the  headlands  of 
Kerry,  and  O'Connell's  first  recollection  is  of  being 
taken  by  the  herdsman  to  see  some  of  the  men.  There 
was  something  dramatic  in  the  situation  which  made 
an  indelible  impression  upon  the  child  whose  life  was 
to  be  a  drama.  Pottering,  child-wise,  about  the  rude 
cabin  of  his  guardians,  he  learned  to  express  his  first 


240  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

thoughts  in  the  native  Irish  tongue.  He  spent  his  first 
four  years  in  the  heart  of  primitive  Ireland — lulled  to 
sleep  with  the  beautiful  legends  of  his  race. 

That  he  was  precocious,  we  may  readily  believe. 
We  are  told  by  his  son  that  he  learned  his  alphabet,  at 
the  age  of  four,  in  an  hour,  while  seated  on  the  knee 
of  David  Mahony,  a  hedge  schoolmaster,  who  won  his 
confidence  and  affection  by  combing  his  tangled  locks 
without  pulling.  At  nine  he  preferred  books  to  play, 
and  we  have  pictures  of  him  absorbed  by  the  hour  in 
the  reading  of  Cook's  Voyages  and  in  tracing  out  the 
voyages  on  the  map.  At  the  age  of  ten,  according  to 
Hamilton's  biography,  he  composed  a  drama  on  the 
fortunes  of  the  house  of  Stuart,  and  while  it  is  not 
extant,  we  may  feel  assured  that  it  was  written  after 
the  most  approved  Jacobin  fashion.  We  might  dis- 
credit the  story  of  this  literary  venture  but  for  the 
fact  that  Daniel  was  morbidly  ambitious  for  fame  at 
an  age  when  the  average  lad  has  no  higher  aspiration 
than  to  excel  in  childish  sports.  On  one  occasion,  in 
his  ninth  year,  his  father  was  entertaining  some  friends 
at  dinner,  and  the  conversation  turned  upon  the  poli- 
cies and  achievements  of  Flood,  Grattan  and  Charle- 
mont.  The  absorbed  and  melancholy  air  of  Httle  Dan 
attracted  attention.  "What  ails  you,  Dan?'*  his  father 
asked.  "I'll  make  a  stir  in  the  world  yet,"  doggedly 
replied  the  child. 

Much  of  his  childhood  was  spent  amid  the  romantic 
scenery  of  Kerry,  at  Darrynane,  the  home  of  an  uncle, 
and  here  he  ran  wild,  a  typical  mountain  boy,  varying 
his  excursions  into  the  hills,  with  trips  to  some  of  the 
little  islands  near  the  mainland.  His  love  for  the 
mountains  and  the  sea  remained  one  of  the  passions  of 


Daniel  O'Connel 


4 


!«A 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  241 

his  life.  He  narrowly  escaped  death  in  an  effort  to  rid 
one  of  the  islands  of  some  wild  bulls  that  terrified  the 
people.  Bubbling  over  w^ith  animal  spirits,  he  sought 
adventure,  and  like  a  true  son  of  Kerry,  he  usually 
found  it. 

In  the  spring  of  1790  his  father  determined  to  send 
Dan  and  his  brother  to  France  to  complete  their  edu- 
cation, but  the  unsettled  conditions  in  that  kingdom 
persuaded  him  to  postpone  their  trip,  and  they  were 
established  for  a  while  in  a  school  near  Cork,  the  first 
one  to  be  opened  by  a  priest  after  the  relaxation  of  the 
barbarous  penal  laws.  In  the  autumn,  however,  the 
father  decided,  contrary  to  the  advice  of  his  brother, 
then  holding  a  commission  in  the  French  army,  to  send 
the  boys  to  the  famous  school  at  Saint  Omer's.  The 
future  liberator  appears  to  have  distinguished  himself 
there.  He  studied  Greek,  Latin  and  French,  composi- 
tion and  geography,  and  to  these  studies  he  added 
fencing,  dancing  and  music.  He  entered  with  enthusi- 
asm into  the  amateur  theatricals  of  the  college,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  enjoyed  himself  thoroughly.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that  he  read,  in  the  original,  and  translated  the 
orations  of  Cicero  and  Demosthenes  and  Dugaro,  the 
Frenchman.  Louis  Cavrios,  in  his  story  of  O'Connell 
at  Saint  Omer's,  tells  us  that  he  was  noted  while  there 
for  his  religious  temperament,  his  retentive  memory, 
solid  judgment,  quick  intelligence  and  wealth  of  imag- 
ination. The  president  of  the  college,  in  writing  to  the 
father  of  the  progress  of  the  two  boys,  gives  a  detailed 
account  of  the  brother  and  dismisses  Dan  with  the 
significant  sentence — "I  never  was  so  much  mistaken 
in  my  life  unless  he  be  destined  to  make  a  remarkable 
figure  in  society." 


242  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

There  is  some  mystery  surrounding  the  transfer  of 
the  O'Connell  brothers  to  the  college  at  Douay.  Dan 
seems  to  have  been  delighted  with  this  institution. 
The  times,  however,  were  now  out  of  joint  in  France. 
The  specter  of  anarchy  was  stalking  through  the  land 
and  knocking  at  the  door  of  authority.  No  educa- 
tional institution,  with  a  religious  foundation,  was  free 
from  the  possibility  of  attack.  The  boys  at  Douay 
were  in  constant  fear  that  the  revolutionaries  would 
break  in  upon  the  school  and  massacre  the  students. 
A  wagoner  in  the  army  of  Dumouriez  met  Dan  upon 
the  road  and  abused  him  roundly  as  a  "little  aristo- 
crat." The  conditions  grew  rapidly  worse,  and,  on 
the  day  of  the  execution  of  the  king,  the  two  Irish  lads 
started  to  Calais  on  their  return  to  England.  On  the 
way  their  carriage  was  attacked  by  republicans  who 
struck  the  vehicle  with  their  muskets  as  they  shouted 
"young  priests"  and  "young  aristocrats."  The  mem- 
ory of  the  incident  clung  to  O'Connell  throughout  his 
life  and  his  horror  of  the  French  Revolution  and  its 
participants  had  an  important  effect  upon  his  political 
career.  The  moment  he  reached  Calais  and  boarded 
the  packet,  he  indignantly  tore  the  tricolor  from  his 
cap  and  threw  it  into  the  sea,  where  it  was  rescued  by 
some  French  fishermen  who  hurled  their  imprecations 
at  him.  It  was  then  that  he  first  learned  of  the  execu- 
tion of  the  king. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  when  he  reached 
London  and  entered  Lincoln's  Inn  for  the  study  of 
law  he  was  a  pronounced  reactionary,  bitterly  opposed 
to  everything  smacking  of  reform.  Fortunately  for 
his  country  and  his  kind  his  views  underwent  a  radical 
change  as  a  result  of  his  attendance  at  the  trial  of 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  243 

Hardy,  who  was  charged  with  treason.  After  a  year 
in  London  he  returned  to  Dublin  and  entered  Lincoln's 
Inn,  where  he  completed  his  professional  preparation. 

Through  Arthur  Houston's  Early  Life  and  Journal 
of  O'Connell  we  are  permitted  to  follow  the  studies 
and  mental  processes  of  the  future  leader  from  1795 
until  1802.  The  journal  reveals  an  O'Connell  not  gen- 
erally known — a  temperamental  O'Connell  consumed 
by  an  overweening  ambition,  given  to  self-deprecia- 
tion and  condemnation,  and  driven  on  two  occasions 
to  the  thought  of  self-slaughter.  The  man  who  was 
to  make  it  the  practise  of  his  mature  manhood  to  rise 
at  four  o'clock,  is  here  found  continually  prodding 
himself  for  his  slothfulness  and  his  disposition  to  lin- 
ger late  in  bed ;  the  future  orator  who  was  to  electrify  a 
world,  scorned  his  own  style  as  "shallow  and  not  well 
thought  out" ;  the  great  apostle  of  peace  and  enemy  of 
physical  violence  here  records  with  no  little  pride  his 
quarrel  over  a  girl,  and  the  resultant  fight;  he  whose 
word  was  as  good  as  most  men's  bond  herein  despises 
himself  for  his  propensity  to  falsehood;  and  the  great 
agitator  who  was  to  ascribe  the  peacefulness  of  his 
monster  meetings  to  the  teachings  of  Father  Matthew 
makes  no  secret  in  his  journal  of  his  participation  in 
many  a  convivial  spree. 

With  all  this  there  are  many  queer  and  amusing  side 
lights  on  his  character.  He  naively  records  the  efforts 
of  a  wicked  woman  to  entangle  him  in  her  net,  and  his 
escape;  and  tells  us  of  his  determination  to  go  alone  at 
night  to  a  graveyard  to  demonstrate  to  his  own  satis- 
faction his  incredulity  of  ghosts.  His  studies  during 
this  period  indicate  a  serious  trend  of  mind.  He  read 
Boswell's  Johnson,  beginning  it  with  a  scoffing  refer- 


244  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

ence  and  concluding  with  an  expression  of  admiration. 
Condorcet's  Life  of  Turgot,  Plutarch's  Lives,  and 
Rousseau's  Confessions  figure  in  his  biographical  read- 
ing. He  read  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  and  found  it 
advantageous  in  the  improvement  of  his  literary  style. 
Among  the  poets  he  studied  the  plays  of  Shakespeare, 
the  Paradise  Lost  of  Milton,  Johnson's  London  and 
Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  the  tragedies  of  Voltaire, 
Akenslde's  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination,  Cowley's 
Poems,  and  Ossian.  It  is  interesting  to  find  him  read- 
ing Adam  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations  and  becoming 
converted  to  its  enlightened  doctrines.  He  confessed 
to  a  partiality  for  Lord  Bollngbroke  whose  Answer  to 
the  London  Journal  and  Vindication  delighted  him. 
He  steeped  himself  in  Grose's  Antiquities  of  Ireland, 
and  read  the  miscellaneous  works  of  Hume,  Gibbon 
and  Voltaire.  The  most  permanent  and  important  im- 
pression of  all  seems  to  have  been  made  upon  him  by 
Godwin's  Political  Justice,  which  had  appeared  but  two 
or  three  years  before,  assailing  monarchy,  aristocracy 
and  property,  but  opposing  the  methods  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  contending  that  all  real  reforms  must 
come  through  reason  rather  than  force.  This  became 
the  doctrine  of  his  life,  accounting  for  his  disapproval 
of  Emmet  and  the  United  Irishmen,  and  preparing  the 
way  for  his  break  with  the  brilliant  youths  of  Young 
Ireland. 

Running  all  through  the  journal  is  the  undercurrent 
of  ambition.  "Sometimes,"  he  wrote,  " — and  indeed 
this  happens  most  frequently — I  am  led  away  by  vanity 
and  ambition  to  imagine  that  I  shall  cut  a  great  figure 
pn  the  theater  of  the  world." 

That  this  thought  of  attaining  celebrity  was  ^vcr 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  245 

present  in  his  subconsciousness  may  properly  be  de- 
duced from  an  incident  connected  with  his  desperate 
illness,  in  the  early  part  of  1798,  when  he  was  stricken 
with  a  serious  fever,  as  the  result  of  falling  to  sleep  in 
wet  clothing  in  a  peasant's  hut  after  a  hard  morning's 
hunt.    In  his  delirium  he  was  heard  to  mutter  the  lines : 

"Unknown  I  die ;  no  tongue  shall  speak  of  me : 
Some  noble  spirits,  judging  by  themselves, 
May  yet  conjecture  what  I  might  have  proved ; 
And  think  life  only  wanting  to  my  fame." 

He  was  in  Dublin,  exposed  to  all  the  perils  of  his 
ambition,  in  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion  of  '98.  It 
is  difficult  to  determine  just  how  close  he  came  to  being 
affiliated  with  the  United  Irishmen.  True  he  served 
as  a  private  in  the  Lawyers'  Corps,  and  his  son  tells 
us  that  he  was  bitter  against  the  United  Irishmen  on 
the  ground  that  they  had  prepared  the  way  for  the 
union.  We  are  informed,  however,  in  the  biography 
of  Sister  Cusack,  that  on  one  occasion,  while  drinking, 
he  was  bent  on  joining  the  society  and  aiding  in  the 
enlistment  of  men,  and  was  saved  from  thus  compro- 
mising himself  by  the  good  offices  of  his  host. 

Then  again  O'Neill  Daunt,  in  his  Recollections, 
quotes  O'Connell  as  saying  that  he  was  a  United  Irish- 
man. However  that  may  be,  the  fact  remains  that 
during  the  worst  days  of  the  rebellion  he  was  safe 
among  the  mountains  of  Kerry,  and  was  never  sus- 
pected of  complicity  by  the  authorities  of  the  Castle. 
In  the  year  of  the  rebellion  he  began  the  practise  of  his 
profession,  making  his  first  appearance  as  a  barrister 
at  Limerick.  His  professional  fame  grew  rapidly.  His 
powers  of  advocacy  and  his  genius  for  cross-examina- 


246  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

tion  made  him  one  of  the  most  remarkable  criminal 
lawyers  of  his  time.  It  was  while  on  the  circuit  that 
the  news  of  the  carrying  of  the  union  reached  him.  He 
was  traveling  through  the  somber  mountain  district 
from  Killarney  to  Kenmare  and  his  heart  was  sad  and 
heavy.  The  day  was  wild  and  gloomy,  and  great  black 
clouds  were  sailing  through  the  sky ;  the  solitude  and 
the  sober  grandeur  of  the  mountains  reflected  his  feel- 
ings as  he  rode  on  with  the  realization  that  his  country 
had  suffered  an  overwhelming  calamity.  Who  knows 
but  that  he  may,  then,  among  the  mountains,  have 
formed  the  resolution  which  was  to  mold  his  destiny? 
He  had  not  stood  aloof  from  the  fight  to  prevent  the 
consummation  of  the  tragedy  which  deprived  his  peo- 
ple of  their  parliament,  and  it  was  his  participation, 
which  marked  his  first  appearance  in  the  public  affairs 
of  Ireland.  Pitt  had  attempted  to  bribe  the  Catholics 
into  acquiescence  by  the  promise  of  an  amelioration  of 
their  condition,  and  the  Castle  disseminated  the  infor- 
mation that  the  Catholic  majority  looked  with  indiffer- 
ence upon  the  destruction  of  the  parliament.  To  dis- 
prove the  report  O'Connell  helped  to  organize  a  great 
meeting  of  the  Catholics  of  Dublin  to  protest  against 
the  impending  crime.  Just  as  the  meeting  opened  the 
red  coats  appeared  at  the  door,  and  O'Connell,  accom- 
panied by  others,  advanced  to  meet  their  officers,  and 
by  a  bold  front,  succeeded  in  preventing  the  dispersal 
of  the  gathering.  It  was  on  that  occasion  that  O'Con- 
nell said  : 


"Let  us  show  to  Ireland  that  we  have  nothing  in  view 
but  her  good;  nothing  in  our  hearts  but  the  desire  of 
mutual  forgiveness,  mutual  toleration  and  mutual  affec- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  247 

tion;  in  fine,  let  every  man  who  feels  with  me  proclaim, 
that  if  the  alternative  were  offered  to  him  of  union  or 
the  re-enactment  of  the  penal  code  in  all  its  pristine  hor- 
rors, that  he  w^ould  prefer  w^ithout  hesitation  the  latter 
as  the  lesser  and  more  sufiferable  evil ;  and  that  he  would 
rather  confide  in  the  justice  of  his  brethren,  the  Protest- 
ants of  Ireland,  who  have  already  liberated  him,  than  lay 
his  country  at  the  feet  of  foreigners." 

Such  was  the  liberator's  introduction  to  public  life. 
Henceforth,  after  a  brief  interval,  we  shall  find  him 
engaged  continuously  in  battling  for  the  emancipation 
of  his  people,  and  the  independence  of  his  country. 


II 


The  poHtlcal  career  of  O'Connell  may  be  divided 
into  two  distinct  parts,  one  dealing  with  his  long  and 
successful  fight  for  Catholic  emancipation,  the  other 
with  the  spectacular  and  brilliant,  though  futile,  fight 
for  the  repeal  of  the  act  of  union.  The  recital,  in  de- 
tail, of  all  the  important  features  of  his  fight  for  eman- 
cipation would  require  volumes,  and  the  telling  of 
the  story  consecutively  would  not  serve  the  purpose 
of  this  study.  Looking  back  over  the  twenty  years  of 
his  miraculous  leadership  of  his  coreligionists  we  shall, 
instead,  point  out  the  principal  features  of  his  policy — 
a  policy  so  brilliant  both  in  its  conception  and  execu- 
tion as  to  have  pointed  to  all  the  world  the  way  of 
great  constitutional  reforms. 

The  leadership  of  O'Connell  probably  dates  from 
about  1808  when  he  carried  the  Catholic  committee 
with  him  in  a  disagreement  as  to  policy  with  the  ven- 
erable John  Keogh.    The  death  of  Pitt,  the  inveterate 


248  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

enemy  of  Ireland,  in  1806,  and  the  consequent  triumph 
of  the  Whigs  who  had  posed  for  years  as  the  partic- 
ular champions  of  the  Irish  people,  impelled  many  of 
the  leaders  in  the  cause  of  emancipation  voluntarily  to 
declare  an  armistice.  It  was  their  contention  that  the 
Whigs  should  not  be  embarrassed  by  the  demands  for 
emancipation  until  they  should  have  had  an  opportu- 
nity firmly  to  fix  themselves  in  the  saddle.  "Let's  wait 
and  see  what  they  will  do" — was  the  suggestion  from 
this  quarter.  From  another  quarter  came  opposition 
to  the  policy  of  petitioning  parliament  for  relief,  year 
after  year,  regardless  of  the  prospects  of  success.  The 
foremost  exponent  of  this  idea  was  none  less  than 
John  Keogh.  He  insisted  that  the  Irish  Catholics 
merely  subjected  themselves  to  needless  humiliation 
and  rebuff,  and  that  more  would  ultimately  be  accom- 
plished by  retiring  from  the  contest  and  maintaining 
a  "dignified  silence." 

To  one  of  O'Connell's  assertiveness  and  combative- 
ness  this  idea  seemed  preposterous,  and  "dignified  si- 
lence" spelt  surrender.  He  contended  that  nothing 
would  do  so  much  toward  disheartening  and  disorgan- 
izing the  Catholics,  and  encouraging  the  English  poli- 
ticians in  the  continuance  of  their  traditional  policy  of 
oppression.  The  clash  of  the  two  ideas  came  in  Jan- 
uary, 1808,  when  the  committee  met  to  determine  upon 
the  wisdom  of  preparing  a  petition.  The  followers  of 
Keogh  opposed  the  petition  on  the  grounds  just  Indi- 
cated, and  on  the  further  ground  that  the  meeting  had 
been  hastily  called  without  giving  the  people  an  oppor- 
tunity to  express  their  views.  The  more  aggressive 
element  met  these  objections  with  the  eloquence  of 
O'Connell,  who  showed  that  the  people  had  been  inter- 


DANIEL  p'CONNELL  249. 

rogated  by  letter,  that  the  demand  for  a  petition  was 
overwhelming  and  unmistakable,  and  that  if  the  Cath- 
olics of  Ireland  stood  firm  and  presented  a  solid  front 
they  would  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  "barren  pet- 
ulance of  the  ex-advocate  Percival,"  or  the  "frothy 
declamation  of  the  poetaster  Canning"  or  the  "pom- 
pous inanity  of  Lord  Castlereagh,  who  might  well  be 
permitted  to  hate  the  country  that  gave  him  birth  to 
her  own  annihilation."  This  speech,  by  its  enthusiasm 
and  eloquence,  swept  the  committee  away  from  the 
conservatism  of  Keogh  and  into  the  control  of  the 
younger  and  greater  man.  From  that  hour,  for  more 
than  twenty  years,  the  greater  part  of  the  burdens  of 
leadership  rested  upon  the  broad  shoulders  of  the  man 
from  Kerry. 

Never  perhaps  during  a  single  hour  of  the  two 
decades  that  followed  did  he  waver  in  his  faith.  In 
season  and  out  of  season  he  labored  in  the  cause,  at 
times  bearing  the  entire  expense  of  the  propaganda, 
at  all  times  arranging  the  meetings,  attending  to  the 
voluminous  correspondence,  preparing  the  resolutions, 
organizing  the  petitions,  arousing  the  masses  by  his 
Mirabeauan  eloquence,  protecting  his  people  against  the 
snares  of  the  law,  and,  in  the  darkest  periods,  sustain- 
ing the  fainting  spirits  of  the  faithful  with  an  optimism 
and  spirit  that  was  contagious.  In  the  contemplation 
of  his  career  the  casual  reader  may  conclude  that  the 
secret  of  his  success  was  the  witchery  of  his  eloquence. 
A  closer  view,  however,  reveals  him  as  one  of  the  most 
astute  and  consummate  politicians  in  the  world's  his- 
tory. He  saw  clearer  and  further  than  most  men.  He 
knew  by  intuition  the  psychological  moment  for  action. 
He  was  a  master  opportunist,     He  kept  his  fingers 


250  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

upon  the  pulse  of  public  opinion — and  thus  he  directed 
sentiment,  mastered  sentiment,  created  sentiment. 

Throughout  the  fight  he  never  faltered  in  the  faith 
that  continual  agitation  was  essential  to  ultimate  suc- 
cess. When  the  charge  was  made  in  1812  that  the 
Catholics  had  injured  their  cause  by  their  activity  and 
persistency  he  indignantly  replied : 

"But  our  tone  is  disliked — ^yes,  my  lord,  they  dislike 
the  tone  which  men  should  use  who  are  deeply  anxious 
for  the  good  of  their  country,  and  who  have  no  other 
object.  We  are  impressed  v/ith  a  sense  of  the  perils  that 
surround  us,  and  of  all  the  calamities  impending  on  a 
divided  and  distracted  people.  We  see  our  own  re- 
sources lavishly  squandered  upon  absurd  projects,  whilst 
our  tottering  paper  currency  is  verging  fast  to  bank- 
ruptcy— the  fate  of  every  other  paper  currency  that  ever 
existed.  We  see  the  private  ruin  that  must  ensue,  the 
destruction  of  the  funded  system.  We  see  the  most  for- 
midable military  force  arrayed  on  the  continent.  The 
emperor  of  the  European  world  is  now  busied  with  some 
quarrel  on  the  northern  frontier,  which  now  extends  to 
the  suburbs  of  St.  Petersburg;  his  fleet  augments  by  the 
month;  who  shall  dare  to  say  that  we  shall  not  have  to 
fight  on  our  own  shores  for  the  last  refuge  of  civil  lib- 
erty in  this  eastern  world.  What  blindness,  what  infat- 
uation, not  to  prepare  for  that  event. 

"We,  my  lord,  assume  the  tone  that  may  terrify  the 
invader ;  we  use  the  tone  of  men  who  appreciate  the  value 
of  civil  liberty,  and  who  would  die  sooner  than  exchange 
it  for  the  iron  sway  of  military  rule.  We  talk  as  men 
should  who  dread  slavery  and  disgrace,  but  laugh  to  scorn 
the  idea  of  danger.  Shall  it  be  asked  if  the  invader  ar- 
rived— 

"And  were  there  none — no  Irish  arm, 

In  whose  veins  the  native  blood  runs  warm  ? 

And  was  there  no  heart  in  the  trampled  land, 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  251 

That  spurned  the  oppressor's  proud  command? 
Could  the  wronged  realm  no  arm  supply, 
But  the  abject  tear  and  the  slavish  sigh? 

"Why  yes,  my  lord,  we  are  told  that  if  we  had  been 
servile  and  base  in  our  language,  and  dastardly  in  our 
conduct,  we  should  be  nearer  success;  that  the  'slavish 
tear'  and  the  'abject  sigh'  v/ould  have  suited  our  dignity ; 
that,  had  we  shown  ourselves  prone  to  servility  and  sub- 
mission, and  silent  in  oppression,  we  should  advance  our 
emancipation;  and  that  by  proving,  by  our  words  and 
actions,  that  we  deserve  to  be  slaves — we  should  insure 
liberty." 

Thus  did  he  push  forward,  scornfully  brushing  aside 
every  suggestion  of  an  armistice.  This  was  something 
entirely  new  for  English  politicians  who  had  been  ac- 
customed to  sporadic  agitation  on  Irish  subjects.  The 
primary  explanation  of  O'Connell's  success  in  agita- 
tion was  that  he  kept  everlastingly  at  it. 

The  fiercest  and  most  vital  opposition  he  encoun- 
tered in  his  leadership  in  the  matter  of  policy  grew  out 
of  the  historic  contest  regarding  the  "veto"  or  "se- 
curities." The  pretended  friends  of  concession,  in 
England,  assumed  to  fear  that  the  unqualified  emanci- 
pation of  the  Catholics,  without  securities  of  any  char- 
acter as  to  the  personnel  of  the  Irish  churchmen,  would 
be  dangerous  to  the  empire  and  fatal  to  the  established 
church  in  Ireland.  It  was  proposed  that  the  govern- 
ment should  possess  the  power  of  veto  over  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  bishops.  This  proposition  was  acqui- 
esced in  by  the  parliamentary  leaders  of  the  Catholic 
cause,  who  received  their  cue  largely  from  the  laity  of 
the  upper  class  who  were  ready  to  accept  anything 
smacking  of  a  concession,  and  were  unable  to  see  that 


252  THE   IRISH   QRATORS 

certain  concessions  were  remedies  equal  to  the  disease. 
During  the  summer  of  1812,  following  the  failure  of 
the  motion  to  consider  the  claims  in  the  house  of  lords, 
by  just  one  vote,  the  bigots  of  England  took  alarm, 
and  began  a  counter  agitation  of  the  most  virulent  na- 
ture. The  "No-Popery"  cry  was  heard  all  over  Eng- 
land, the  London  press  became  especially  vicious  in 
its  intolerance,  and  every  encouragement  was  held  out 
to  the  organization  of  Orange  societies  in  Ireland. 
The  indications  pointed  to  a  period  of  religious  perse- 
cution, and  the  Catholics,  thoroughly  aroused,  held 
numerous  meetings  over  the  country.  Not  only  were 
the  people  apprehensive  of  persecution,  but  they  found 
an  even  greater  occasion  for  alarm  in  the  rumor  that 
the  government  was  preparing,  in  connection  with  the 
proposed  reHef  bill,  some  such  plan  of  ecclesiastical 
interference  as  the  veto. 

In  one  of  his  great  popular  speeches  at  Limerick, 
O'Connell  met  the  danger  on  the  road  and  challenged 
it  with  a  boldness  that  contributed  largely  to  the  mold- 
ing of  public  opinion. 

"And  can  there  be  any  honest  man,'*  he  said,  "deceived 
by  the  cant  and  cry  for  securities?  Is  there  any  man 
that  believes  that  there  is  safety  in  oppression,  contumely 
and  insult,  and  that  security  is  necessary  against  protec- 
tion, liberality  and  conciliation?  Does  any  man  really 
suppose  that  there  is  no  danger  from  the  continuance 
of  unjust  grievances  and  exasperating  intolerance,  and 
that  security  is  wanting  against  the  effects  of  justice  and 
perfect  toleration?  Who  is  it  that  is  idiot  enough  to 
believe  that  he  is  quite  safe  in  dissension,  disunion  and 
animosity,  and  wants  a  protection  against  harmony,  be- 
nevolence and  charity? — that  in  hatred  there  is  safety,  in 
affection  ruin? — that,  now  that  we  are  excluded  from 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  253 

the  constitution,  we  may  be  loyal;  but  that  if  we  were 
entrusted  personally  with  its  safety,  we  would  wish  to 
destroy  it  ? 

*'But  this  is  a  pitiful  delusion.  There  was  indeed  a 
time  when  sanctions  and  securities  might  have  been 
deemed  necessary;  when  the  Catholic  was  treated  as  an 
enemy  to  God  and  man ;  when  his  property  was  the  prey 
of  legalized  plunder;  his  religion,  and  its  sacred  minis- 
ters, the  object  of  legalized  persecution;  when,  in  defi- 
ance and  contempt  of  the  dictates  of  justice  and  the 
faith  of  treaties — and  I  attest  the  venerable  city  in  which 
I  stand  that  solemn  treaties  were  basely  violated — the 
English  faction  in  the  land  turned  the  Protestant  into 
an  intolerant  and  murderous  bigot,  in  order  that  it  might 
in  security  plunder  that  very  Protestant,  and  oppress  his 
and  our  common  country.  Poor  neglected  Ireland!  At 
that  period  securities  might  be  supposed  wanting;  the 
people  of  Ireland — the  Catholic  population  of  Ireland — 
were  then  as  brave  and  strong,  comparatively,  as  they 
are  at  present ;  and  the  country  then  afforded  advantages 
for  the  desultory  warfare  of  a  valiant  peasantry,  which, 
fortunately,  have  since  been  exploded  by  increasing  cul- 
tivation. 

"At  the  period  to  which  I  allude  the  Stuart  family  w^s 
still  in  existence;  they  possessed  a  strong  claim  to  the 
exaggerating  allegiance  and  unbending  fidelity  of  the 
Irish  people.  Every  right  that  hereditary  descent  could 
give  the  royal  race  of  Stuart,  they  possessed — in  private 
life,  too,  they  were  endeared  to  the  Irish,  because  they 
were,  even  the  worst  of  them,  gentlemen.  But  they  had 
still  stronger  claims  on  the  sympathy  and  generosity  of 
the  Irish :  they  had  been  exalted  and  were  fallen ;  they 
had  possessed  thrones  and  kingdoms,  and  were  then  in 
poverty  and  humiliation.  All  the  enthusiastic  sympathies 
of  the  Irish  heart  were  roused  for  them;  and  all  the 
powerful  motives  of  personal  interest  bore,  in  the  same 
channel,  the  restoration  of  their  rights — ^the  triumph  of 
their  religion,  the  restitution  of  their  ancient  inheritances 
would  then  have  been  the  certain  and  immediate  conse- 


254  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

quences  of  the  success  of  the  Stuart  family  in  their  pre- 
tensions to  the  throne. 

"At  the  period  to  which  I  allude  the  Catholic  clergy 
were  bound  by  no  oath  of  allegiance;  to  be  a  dignitary 
of  the  Catholic  church  in  Ireland  was  a  transportable 
felony — and  the  oath  of  allegiance  was  so  mingled  with 
religious  tenets  that  no  clergyman  or  layman  of  the  Cath- 
olic persuasion  could  possibly  take  it.  At  that  period 
the  Catholic  clergymen  were  all  educated  in  foreign  coun- 
tries, under  the  eye  of  the  pope,  and  within  the  inspec- 
tion of  the  house  of  Stuart.  From  fifty-eight  colleges 
and  convents  on  the  continent  did  the  Catholic  clergy  re- 
pair to  meet,  for  the  sake  of  their  God,  poverty,  perse- 
cution, contumely  and  not  infrequently  death,  in  their  na- 
tive land.  They  were  often  hunted  like  wild  beasts  and 
never  could  claim  any  protection  from  the  law.  That, 
that  was  a  period  when  securities  might  well  have  been 
necessary,  when  sanctions  and  securities  might  well  have 
been  requisite.     .     .     . 

"How  do  I  prove  the  continued  loyalty  of  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland  under  every  persecution  ?  I  do  not  appeal  for 
any  proofs  to  their  own  records,  however  genuine ;  I  ap- 
peal merely  to  the  testimony  of  their  rulers  and  their  en- 
emies. I  appeal  to  the  letters  of  Primate  Boulter — to 
the  state  papers  of  the  humane  and  patriotic  Chesterfield. 
I  have  their  loyalty  through  the  admissions  of  every  sec- 
retary and  governor  of  Ireland,  until  it  is  finally  and  con- 
clusively put  on  record  by  the  legislature  of  Ireland  itself. 
The  relaxing  statutes  expressly  declare  that  the  penal 
laws  ought  to  be  repealed,  not  from  motives  of  policy 
or  growing  liberality,  but  (I  quote  the  words)  'because 
of  the  long  continued  and  uninterrupted  loyalty  of  the 
Catholics.'  This  is  the  consummation  of  my  proof — and 
I  defy  the  veriest  disciple  of  the  doctrine  of  delusion  to 
overturn  it." 

Notwithstanding  the  popular  sentiment  against  the 
securities,  when  Grattan  submitted  his  Relief  bill  to 
parliament  in  1813  these  were  incorporated.    JVhen  it 


DANIEL   O'CONNELE  255 

passed  the  house  in  its  preliminary  stages  the  people 
of  Ireland  were  at  loss  whether  to  rejoice  over  the 
growing  liberality  of  the  English  or  to  lament  the  pres- 
ence of  the  humiliating  veto.  But  when  it  was  finally 
fatally  emasculated,  by  the  elimination  of  the  clause 
granting  the  right  to  sit  in  parliament,  and  was  conse- 
quently withdrawn,  O'Connell  openly  rejoiced.  The 
prelates  of  Dublin  had  met  and  passed  resolutions  con- 
demnatory of  the  bill  with  its  securities  and  at  the 
next  meeting  of  the  Catholic  board,  O'Connell  took 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  return  to  the  attack. 
This  he  did  by  showing  the  probable  character  of  the 
commission  provided  for  in  the  bill  to  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  church  affairs  of  the  Catholics.  His  proposal 
of  a  vote  of  thanks  to  the  prelates  brought  on  a  debate 
in  which  Councilor  Belle w  defended  the  "securities." 
This  called  forth  from  O'Connell  a  stinging  rebuke : 

"But,  said  their  learned  advocate,  they  have  a  right  to 
demand,  because  they  stand  in  need  of  securities.  I  deny 
the  right — I  deny  the  need.  What  security  have  they 
had  for  a  century  that  has  elapsed  since  the  violation 
of  the  treaty  of  Limerick?  What  security  have  they  had 
during  these  years  of  oppression  and  barbarous  and 
bloody  legislation?  What  security  have  they  had  whilst 
the  hereditary  claim  of  the  house  of  Stuart  remained? 
.  .  .  What  security  had  the  English  from  our  bishops 
when  England  was  invaded  and  the  unfortunate  but  gal- 
lant Prince  Charles  advanced  into  the  heart  of  England, 
guided  by  valor  and  accompanied  by  a  handful  of  brave 
men  who  had,  under  his  command,  obtained  more  than 
one  victory  ?  He  was  a  man  likely  to  excite  and  to  grat- 
ify Irish  enthusiasm ;  he  was  chivalrous  and  brave ;  he 
was  a  man  of  honor  and  a  gentleman,  no  violator  of  his 
word ;  he  spent  not  his  time  in  making  his  soldiers  ridicu- 
lous, with  horsetails  and  white  feathers ;  he  did  not  con- 


256  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

sume  his  mornings  in  tasting  curious  drams,  and  eve- 
nings in  gallanting  old  women.  What  security  had  the 
English  then  ?  What  security  had  they  against  our  bish- 
ops and  our  laity  when  America  nobly  flung  off  the  yoke 
that  had  become  too  heavy  to  be  borne,  and  sought  her 
independence  at  the  risk  of  her  being?  What  security 
had  they  then?  I  will  tell  you,  my  lord.  The  security 
at  those  periods  was  perfect  and  complete,  because  it  ex- 
isted in  the  conscientious  allegiance  of  the  Catholics;  it 
consisted  in  the  duty  of  allegiance  which  the  Irish  Cath- 
olics have  ever  held  and  will,  I  trust,  ever  hold  sacred ; 
it  consisted  in  the  conscientious  submission  to  legitimate 
authority,  however  oppressive,  which  our  bishops  have 
always  preached  and  our  laity  have  always  practised.'* 

The  Belle w  to  whom  O'Connell  replied,  was  a  type 
all  too  well  known  in  the  history  of  Ireland.  At  the 
time  he  spoke  in  favor  of  the  securities  he  was  receiv- 
ing two  pensions  from  the  government,  and  within 
two  weeks  after  the  debate  with  O'Connell  he  was  re- 
warded with  a  third !  However  triumphant  O'Connell 
may  have  been  in  his  contests  on  the  board,  he  was  not 
the  man  to  rest  his  case  with  a  few  if  he  could  appeal 
to  the  many;  and  his  opportunity  to  appeal  to  the 
many  came  in  June,  1813,  at  a  great  aggregate  meet- 
ing in  the  Fishamble-Street  theater  where  resolutions 
demanding  unqualified  emancipation  were  offered  and 
unanimously  carried. 

While  the  views  of  O'Connell  met  with  general  ap- 
probation, the  fight  over  the  securities  continued  with 
unabated  fury,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1813  the  advo- 
cates of  the  veto  found  their  most  brilliant  and  plausi- 
ble champion  in  Richard  Lalor  Sheil,  who  opposed  a 
resolution  against  the  securities  offered  at  a  board 
meeting.     It  was  the  first  notable  appearance  of  the 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  257 

amazing  genius  whose  exceptional  possibilities  were 
immediately  recognized  by  the  liberator.  One  of  the 
secrets  of  the  success  of  his  leadership  was  his  perfect 
appraisement  of  men,  and  his  utter  lack  of  jealousy. 
In  his  brilliant  reply  to  Sheil  he  was  careful  to  compli- 
ment the  young  orator  upon  his  capacity  and  promise 
and  to  offer  him  a  position  of  leadership  in  the  army 
of  unconditional  emancipation.  We  see  a  little  later 
on,  the  harvest  from  the  seed  of  conciliation  thus  sown. 

When  it  was  learned,  in  1814,  that  Grattan  declined 
to  present  the  Catholic  petition  with  the  injunction  of 
"no  securities,"  O'Connell,  instead  of  weakening  in  his 
faith,  became,  if  anything,  more  insistent  in  his  deter- 
mination to  win  unqualified  emancipation  or  none 
at  all. 

The  refusal  of  O'Connell  to  compromise  on  the  se- 
curities or  to  concede  the  leadership  of  Grattan  in  the 
matter  only  intensified  the  fight  during  the  year  1814. 
The  advocates  of  the  securities  made  a  strenuous  ef- 
fort to  turn  the  tide  of  public  opinion  at  a  great  meet- 
ing in  the  county  Clare,  where  Chief  Baron  Woulfe,  a 
man  of  unusual  ability,  delivered  a  carefully  prepared 
speech  in  which,  among  other  things,  he  accused 
O'Connell  of  having  made  an  attack  upon  Grattan. 
The  reply  of  O'Connell  on  this  occasion  was  in  his 
best  "mob'*  style — as  Lecky  would  have  called  it.  He 
indignantly  denied  the  least  abuse  of  Grattan,  but  de- 
clined to  be  diverted  from  the  Issue,  and  in  an  analysis 
of  the  bill  which  was  defeated,  he  showed  that  it  would 
have  compromised  the  religion  of  the  Catholics,  and 
destroyed  the  liberty  of  the  people ;  the  one  by  convert- 
ing the  prelates  Into  subservient  defenders  of  the  gov- 
ernment, the  other  by  forcing  these  political  prelates 


258  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

into  becoming  the  electioneering  agents  of  the  govern- 
ment against  the  hberties  of  the  subject. 

Then  came  the  bomb  into  the  camp  of  the  O'Con- 
nelHtes ! 

During  the  captivity  of  the  pope,  a  message  came 
from  Rome,  signed  by  Monsignor  Quarantotti,  vice- 
prefect  of  Rome,  assenting  to  the  securities.  This  was 
a  staggering  blow — but  it  did  not  daze  O'Connell.  In- 
stantly and  indignantly  he  repudiated  It.  However,  it 
had  Its  effect  and  partly  disarmed  him.  Quick  on  its 
heels  came  the  abolishment  of  the  Catholic  board  by 
the  government.  The  year  came  to  a  close  in  gloom. 
In  the  drawing-room  meetings,  that  followed  the  pro- 
scription of  the  board,  he  continued  the  struggle — and 
unfortunately  the  drawing-room  type  of  agitator  was 
all  too  prone  to  compromise.  In  the  summer  of  1815, 
when  the  question  arose  as  to  whom  the  Catholic  peti- 
tion should  be  entrusted  in  parliament,  he  successfully 
contended  that  a  committee  should  be  sent  to  London 
to  find  some  Englishman  who  would  stand  sponsor  for 
a  petition  containing  the  "no  security"  injunction. 
Two  months  later  he  won  his  long  drawn  battle  when 
the  prelates  of  Ireland  took  their  position  unqualifiedly 
and  finally  against  any  form  of  security  v/hich  would 
in  any  way  interfere  with  the  discipline  or  organiza- 
tion of  the  church. 

In  his  fight  In  favor  of  constant  action  and  vigorous 
agitation  O'Connell  had  prevailed  over  John  Keogh — 
the  early  leader  of  the  Irish  Catholics.  In  his  battle 
against  the  securities,  he  overthrew  the  power  of  the 
Catholic  aristocracy,  and  supplanted  Grattan  and  Plun- 
kett  in  the  acknowledged  leadership  of  the  Irish  people. 
By  sheer  force  of  Intense  conviction  he  fought  his  way 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  259 

to  leadership.  The  burden  was  now  upon  him.  Defeat 
would  be  ascribed  to  his  mistakes,  and  success  would 
be  his  triumph.  We  shall  now  note  his  methods  of 
leadership — the  various  strategies  by  which  he  forced 
the  movement  forward  to  ultimate  victory. 


ni 


One  of  the  most  noticeable  features  of  his  policy 
was  his  effort  to  conciliate  and  enlist  the  services  of 
the  liberally  inclined  Protestants  of  Ireland.  It  is  well 
to  bear  in  mind  in  the  study  of  the  career  of  O'Con- 
nell  that  throughout  the  twenty-year  struggle  for  the 
emancipation  of  his  coreligionists  he  had  in  mind  the 
restoration  of  the  parliament  of  Ireland.  He  knew 
that  emancipation  was  a  necessary  means  to  the  end 
• — the  repeal  of  the  union.  Thus  he  did  everything 
within  his  power  to  break  down  the  barriers  of  big- 
otry in  Ireland  and  to  consolidate  the  people  of  all  re- 
ligions into  an  aggressive  and  united  nationality. 
Thus  in  1813,  when  the  Catholics  of  Dublin  prepared 
their  petition  to  parliament,  he  entrusted  its  composi- 
tion to  the  gifted  young  Protestant,  Charles  Phillips* 
— and  then  he  proclaimed  and  eulogized  the  author. 
When,  in  the  spring  of  1811,  the  Catholics  gave  a  din- 

*  Charles  Phillips  was  a  remarkable  genius,  a  graceful  poet,  a 
successful  lawyer,  a  clever  writer,  and  a  brilliant  orator  whose 
speeches  were  marred  by  over-adornment.  His  speeches  pub- 
lished in  his  twenty-ninth  year  called  down  upon  him  the  sar- 
castic criticisms  of  the  reviewers,  and  while  he  lived  to  a  ripe 
old  age  and  became  a  leader  of  the  Old  Bailey  Bar  of  London 
and  a  jurist,  he  never  afterward  published  his  speeches.  His 
tribute  to  Washington  at  banquet  and  his  character  sketch  of 
Napoleon  are  little  masterpieces  and  have  survived.  His  Rent- 
iniscences  of  Curran,  written  in  three  weeks,  is  a  fascinating 
work. 


260  JKE   IRISH    ORATORS 

ner  to  some  of  their  Protestant  supporters  in  Dublin, 
O'Connell  said  : 


"This,  I  believe,  is  the  first  time  Catholics  and  Protest- 
ants have  publicly  assembled  at  the  festive  board — alas, 
the  first  time  we  have  sought  access  to  each  other's  hearts. 
If  such  meetings  shall  frequently  take  place,  and  I  trust 
in  God  they  will,  it  is  impossible  that  your  great  and 
ancient  nation — your  nation  famed  for  every  physical 
good  which  can  make  existence  valuable,  and  which  has 
given  birth  to  the  best  and  the  bravest  of  the  human 
race — it  is  impossible,  I  say,  that  any  minister  can  tyr- 
annize over  you,  or  any  foe  effect  your  subjugation.  If 
the  spirit  shall  go  abroad  which  pervades  this  meeting, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  expect  that  your  enfranchisement 
is  at  hand ;  that  your  parliament  must  be  restored.  As 
it  is  the  habit  of  men  who  follow  my  trade  to  talk  much, 
you  may,  perhaps,  fear  that  I  trespass  on  your  attention ; 
but  I  shall  be  brief.  A  bigot — be  he  of  what  profession 
he  may,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant;  of  what  rank 
soever,  whether  monarch,  peer  or  peasant;  whether  his 
brow  is  encircled  w^ith  a  diadem  or  his  body  enveloped 
in  rags — is  a  bigot  to  me.  Louis  XIV  disgracefully 
treated  a  brave  and  skilled  warrior.  Admiral  Duchesne, 
because  he  was  a  Protestant ;  and  Louis  XIV  was  there- 
fore an  outrageous  bigot.  Our  gracious  prince,  who  is 
the  parent  of  his  Irish  people,  has  given  an  earnest  of 
what  we  may  expect  from  him  by  refusing  to  comply 
with  the  corrupt  requisition  of  a  minister;  he  will  unite 
us  and  therefore  have,  instead  of  one  regiment  of  his 
own  Irish,  an  entire  nation." 

Some  time  after  this,  at  a  dinner  given  to  the 
Friends  of  Religious  Liberty,  where  Henry  Grattan, 
John  Philpot  Curran  and  Sir  Henry  Parnell  were 
among  the  guests;  O'Connell  made  an  even  stronger 
appeal  for  support  of  the  liberal  Protestants ; 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  261 

"You  have,  my  Protestant  brothers,"  he  said,  "an  in- 
terest in  the  hearts,  and  a  control  over  the  hands,  of  one 
milHon  of  men — as  brave  and  hardy  a  race  as  ever  the 
world  saw;  let  the  enemy  come  when  he  may,  your  lib- 
erality will  recruit  a  mass  of  unbought  millions.  I  have 
the  honor  of  bearing  my  very  humble  testimony  to  the 
worth  of  our  noble  chairman,  who  has  been  ever  upright 
and  consistent.  The  life  and  blood  and  spirit  of  every 
Catholic  in  Ireland  is  with  him.  Having  briefly  given 
my  genuine  sentimxnts,  I  wish  that  the  recollection  of 
this  day  should  never  be  erased  from  your  memories. 
Nor  should  the  remembrance  of  our  friends  present  be 
ever  lost.  The  day,  the  persons  and  the  occasion  of  meet- 
ing should  be  immortalized.  ...  I  would  scorn  eman- 
cipation if  it  were  to  injure  the  poorest  of  my  Protestant 
countrymen.  Let  any  man  prove  to  me  that  Catholic 
emancipation  can  be  detrimental  to  the  meanest  member 
of  the  established  church,  and  I  will  cheerfully  consent 
to  forego  it.  The  principle  which  has  given  aid  to  Spain 
and  Portugal  should  be  extended  to  Ireland.  That  spirit 
which  God  has  given  the  human  mind  can  not  be  ex- 
tinguished by  human  efforts ;  and  for  man  to  interfere 
with  it  is  a  flagrant  act  of  impiety." 

Again,  in  1819,  at  a  great  Catholic  meeting  in  Dub- 
lin, with  the  Earl  of  Fingal  in  the  chair,  O'Connell, 
speaking  to  a  resolution  of  thanks  to  the  Protestants 
for  their  support,  said : 

"But  the  happy,  the  glorious  era  which  must  be  im- 
mortal in  the  history  of  Ireland  has  arrived — yes,  had 
arrived,  and  is  no  longer  to  be  wished  for,  when  these 
odious  and  devastating  distinctions  were  removed.  Prot- 
estants have  assembled  and  expressed  their  honorable 
feeling  on  the  claims  of  their  Catholic  friends  and  breth- 
ren. The  first  Protestant  nobleman  of  the  country,  the 
Duke  of  Leinster,  one  of  whose  ancestors  was  brought 
to  the  bar  of  the  house  of  lords  on  the  broad  plea  of 


262  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

being  more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves,'  whose  diffi- 
dence became  his  youthful  years — it  was  delightful  to 
see  him  shaking  ofif  that  diffidence  which,  if  it  continued, 
must  impede  his  political  career,  and  leading  on  that  glo- 
rious array  of  Protestant  benevolence :  the  Earl  of  Meath, 
always  a  friend  and  patron  of  Ireland;  Charlemont, 
whose  name  is  music  to  Irish  ears ;  Grattan,  whose  elo- 
quence and  virtue  raised  Ireland  into  independence  and 
liberty — the  old  patriot,  Grattan,  who  had  given  Ireland 
all  she  had,  and  would  have  made  her  all  she  ought  to 
be.  .  .  .  Let  Catholics  continue  to  deserve,  and  Prot- 
estants to  reward  with  their  good  wishes  and  confidence, 
and  the  motto  of  Ireland  in  future  be — 'God  and  our  na- 
tive land.' " 

It  was  with  this  idea  of  making  a  nation  that  he 
prevailed  upon  the  Catholic  board  in  1813  to  declare 
in  favor  of  the  exclusive  consumption  of  articles  of 
Irish  manufacture.  This  policy  was  calculated  to 
make  a  favorable  impression  upon  the  Protestant  man- 
ufacturing interests  of  the  north,  and  to  impress  upon 
the  people  the  really  national  character  of  the  agita- 
tion he  was  fostering.  In  view  of  the  wretched  con- 
ditions then  existing  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of 
Ireland,  the  Catholic  board  had  assumed  a  sympathetic 
attitude  toward  the  artisans  who  were  unemployed. 
It  was  following  this  action  of  the  board  that  O'Con- 
nell  submitted  his  proposition  in  favor  of  Irish  man- 
ufacture. 


"It  is  useless  for  the  board  to  speak  if  it  does  not 
act,"  he  said.  "It  would  be  guilty  of  a  great  crime  in- 
deed if,  after  promising  these  poor  people  to  find  work 
for  them,  it  were  to  content  itself  with  the  mere  promise 
instead  of  the  performance.  With  this  impression  upon 
my  mind  I  am  anxious  to  bring  forward  some  measure 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  263 

which  may  give  effect  to  the  resolutions  already  passed. 
The  cotton  manufacturers,  in  particular,  are  suffering  the 
extreme  of  misery.  The  present  period  of  the  year  is 
that  in  Vv^hich  their  fabrics  may  best  be  used ;  and  I  have 
reason  to  know  that  if  the  sale  of  English  goods  were 
to  be  suspended  but  for  one  day  in  this  city,  and  that  of 
Irish  substituted,  there  would  not  be  a  single  piece  of 
goods  left  on  hands.  It  is  idle  for  gentlemen  to  talk  of 
public  spirit  and  patriotism,  or  even  of  common  human- 
ity, if  the  knowledge  of  such  a  fact  as  this  does  not  in- 
spire them  to  deeds  as  well  as  words.  Upon  making 
up  the  annual  accounts  of  the  sale  of  cotton  manufacture, 
it  was  clearly  established  that  there  is  not  so  much  of  the 
Irish  manufacture  sold  in  the  entire  year  as  of  the  Eng- 
lish in  one  day.  Can  any  person  with  Irish  feelings  lis- 
ten to  this  statement  and  refuse  to  make  the  slight  sac- 
rifice of  purchasing  the  work  of  his  countrymen  in 
preference  to  English  manufacture,  which  he  might  sup- 
pose better  or  handsomer?  But  in  point  of  fact  it  is 
not  better  or  handsomer.  The  manufacture  of  all  kinds 
of  clothing  has  much  improved  under  all  the  discourag- 
ing circumstances.  What  perfection  may  it  not  arrive 
at  if  it  but  receive  the  countenance  of  the  inhabitants? 
Instead  of  having  it  said  Tt  must  be  good  because  it  is 
English,'  I  want  it  said  'It  must  be  good  because  it  is 
Irish.' " 


A  characteristic  of  O'Connell's  leadership  was  its 
strictly  constitutional  character  and,  consequently,  its 
comparative  immunity  from  the  successful  attacks  of 
the  Castle.  The  attempt  to  put  down  the  Catholic 
committee  at  its  meeting  of  February  twenty-three, 
1811,  by  an  order  of  dispersal  from  the  Castle,  was 
thwarted  by  the  defiant  insistence  of  the  liberator  that 
no  law  was  being  violated.  The  astonished  ofificlal  re- 
turned to  the  Castle  with  the  message  of  O'Connell 
— and  the  meeting  was  not  dispersed.    Such  incidents 


264  THE   IRISH   pRATORS 

were  frequent  during  tlie  next  twenty  years.  It  was 
not  on  such  occasions  as  these  that  the  hberator  feared 
for  his  people. 

In  the  summer  of  1813  a  vicious  effort  was  made 
by  the  government  to  poison  the  people  of  England 
against  the  Irish  Catholics,  and  the  most  infamous 
falsehoods  regarding  their  lawlessness  were  dissemi- 
nated through  the  English  press.  The  bitterness  of 
the  bigots  served  to  engender  a  kindred  feeling  in  the 
breasts  of  the  Irish  masses,  and  the  temptation  to  join 
secret  societies  to  meet  the  aggressions  of  the  Orange- 
men was  almost  irresistible.  The  situation  appealed 
to  O'Connell  as  being  packed  with  dynamite.  Time 
and  again  we  find  him  warning  his  people  against  these 
seditious  organizations  and  urging  them  to  keep  within 
the  law. 

Even  more  difificult,  however,  than  preventing  law- 
lessness was  the  task  of  preserving  harmony  within 
his  own  army.  The  one  great  curse  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple has  ever  been  their  disposition  to  quarrel  among 
themselves.  No  one  understood  it  better  than  O'Con- 
nell. Not  only  did  he  feel  that  it  was  essential  to 
have  harmony  among  the  Catholics,  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  unity  among  the  Irish  people.  The  most  com- 
manding phase  of  his  genius  was  his  capacity  as  a 
harmonizer — ^his  power  as  a  peace  maker.  It  was  the 
unique  element  in  his  leadership.  It  accounts  in  a  large 
degree  for  his  final  triumph.  He  was  put  to  the  test 
early  in  his  leadership,  in  1811,  when  the  most  acri- 
monious dissensions  broke  out  in  the  committee.  The 
country  gentlemen  resented  the  assumption  of  the  rep- 
resentatives of  Dublin,  the  farmers  attacked  the  law- 
yers, a  veritable  tempest  in  a  teapot,  all  due  to  petty 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  265 

jealousies,  threatened  to  disorganize  and  utterly  de- 
moralize. In  one  of  the  most  stormy  meetings  O'Con- 
nell  poured  oil  upon  the  troubled  waters.  Turning  to 
both  factions  he  exclaimed : 

"Could  anything  be  imagined  more  agreeable  to  the 
Wellesleys  and  the  Percivals  than  to  find  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland  involved  in  a  wrangle  among  themselves — 
than  to  see  them  engaged  in  attacking  and  vilifying  one 
another  when  every  faculty  of  their  minds  ought  to  be  di- 
rected to  concert  one  combined  effort  of  all  the  Irish 
people  to  put  down  their  enemies  and  to  procure,  in  a 
constitutional  course,  their  emancipation?" 

Again  we  find  him  bringing  the  warring  factions 
to  their  sober  senses  with  a  solemn  recitation  of  his- 
tory : 

"The  old  curse  of  the  Catholics  is,  I  fear,  about  to  be 
renewed ;  division — and  that  made  us  what  we  are,  and 
keeps  us  so — is  again  to  rear  its  standard  amongst  us ; 
but  it  was  thus  always  with  the  Irish  Catholics.  I  recol- 
lect that  in  reading  the  life  of  the  great  Duke  of  Or- 
mond,  as  he  is  called,  I  was  forcibly  struck  with  a  dis- 
patch of  his,  transmitted  about  the  year  1661,  when  he 
was  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland.  It  was  written  to  vindi- 
cate himself  from  the  charge  of  having  favored  the  pap- 
ists, and  having  given  them  permission  to  hold  a  public 
meeting  in  Dublin.  His  answer  is  remarkable.  He  re- 
jects with  disdain  the  foul  calumny  of  being  a  favorer 
of  papists,  though  he  admits  he  gave  them  leave  to  meet : 
'Because,'  said  he,  *I  know  by  experience  that  the  Irish 
papists  never  meet  without  dividing  and  degrading  them- 
selves.' " 

In  looking  over  the  proceedings  of  the  Catholic  com- 
mittee and  board  one  is  impressed  with  the  frequency 


266  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

with  which  O'Connell  diplomatically  smooths  away  a 
difference  with  a  suggestion,  or  prevents  a  division 
by  a  personal  appeal.  ''Let  me  suggest,  by  way  of 
accommodating  the  difference,  an  amendment,"  he  be- 
gins— and  the  threatened  trouble  is  over.  "My  God, 
are  gentlemen  so  wedded  to  their  opinions  as  not  to 
yield  a  little  for  the  sake  of  unanimity?"  he  exclaims, 
and  the  obstreperous  one  is  shamed  into  submission. 
We  have  seen  how  O'Connell  won  the  position  of 
leadership — by  the  boldness  of  his  program  and  his 
refusal  to  compromise  with  the  common  enemy.  He 
had,  through  his  majestic  eloquence,  carried  his  name 
to  the  most  remote  quarters.  He  was  the  cynosure 
of  the  Catholics  of  the  world.  He  had  aroused  a 
people  that  had  slept  for  six  long  centuries.  The  awak- 
ening had  sent  a  thrill  of  fear  through  the  govern- 
ment. It  had  followed  the  every  move  of  the  orator 
with  its  spies  and  reporters,  but  it  found  nothing  upon 
which  to  base  a  prosecution.  The  country  was  com- 
paratively peaceful.  The  lawlessness  was  on  the  other 
side.  But  something  had  to  be  done — regardless  of 
the  law.  Thus  the  Catholic  committee  was  sup- 
pressed. Thus  was  the  Catholic  board  put  down. 
Thus  were  the  masses  of  Ireland  proscribed.  But  all 
that  England  did  was  nothing  compared  to  what  Ire- 
land did  to  wreck  the  movement.  The  aristocratic  ele- 
ment of  the  Catholics,  still  hugging  the  securities,  and 
voicing  its  discord  through  the  sporadic  speech  of 
Shell ;  the  abandonment  of  the  cause  In  parliament  by 
its  former  champions;  the  outlawry  of  organization 
had  their  inevitable  effect.  The  people,  discouraged, 
became  apathetic.  The  specter  of  despair  swooped 
down  upon  the  many.    But  there  was  one  who  never 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  267 

despaired.  He  knew  that  the  reaction  would  come, 
and  he  waited  until  the  time  was  ripe.  And  then  he 
called  to  his  side  one  who  had  fought  him  from  the 
platform,  denounced  him  through  the  press.  During 
the  hopeless  days  from  1821  until  1823  O'Connell  com- 
municated his  spirit  to  the  people  through  annual  let- 
ters, and  one  man — an  Irishman  and  a  Catholic — re- 
plied in  a  spiteful  letter  full  of  venom.  This  was 
Richard  Lalor  Sheil — and  it  was  Sheil  that  O'Connell 
called  to  his  side  when  he  prepared  to  launch  the  Cath- 
olic association.  What  manner  of  man  was  O'Connell 
that  he  could  not  only  forgive  an  enemy  but  exalt 
him?  Before  we  enter  upon  the  next  and  final  phase 
of  the  emancipation  fight,  let  us  turn  for  a  moment 
to  contemplate  the  greatness  of  O'Connell,  the  man 
who  was  big  enough  to  put  jealousy  aside.  This  was 
one  of  the  secrets  of  his  greatness.  How  great  he 
was  in  this  respect  we  shall  now  see. 

IV 

During  the  long  period  of  his  leadership  O'Connell 
found  it  necessary  according  to  his  light  to  assume 
an  aggressively  hostile  attitude  toward  many  Irish 
patriots  upon  plain  matters  of  policy  and  principle. 
It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  three  foremost  cham- 
pions of  emancipation,  after  the  liberator  himself,  were 
constrained  at  different  times  to  criticize  O'Connell 
with  a  severity  verging  on  virulence.  Each  of  these 
immortal  three — Grattan,  Plunkett  and  Sheil — person- 
ally denounced  him.  The  attack  upon  him  by  Grattan 
was  in  the  most  cutting  style  of  that  master  of  de- 
nunciation.   Lord  Plunkett  made  no  secret  of  his  dis- 


268  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

taste  for  the  methods  of  the  agitator  or  for  the  man 
himself.  Sheil  sought  opportunities  to  refer  to  him 
in  terms  of  contempt.  It  is  creditable  to  the  general- 
ship of  O'Connell  that  he  did  not  reply  in  kind  to  any 
of  the  three.  He  met  their  arguments  and  passed  their 
personalities  without  a  word.  He  doubtless  under- 
stood that  a  wordy  war  within  the  Irish  camp  would 
give  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy — but  his  restraint 
can  not  be  accounted  for  on  the  grounds  of  policy 
alone.  He  was  too  big  and  broad  to  permit  another 
man's  ill  opinion  of  him  to  affect  his  opinion  of  the 
other  man. 

The  differences  between  O'Connell  and  Grattan  on 
the  securities  were  deep  and  abiding,  and  up  until  the 
hour  of  his  death  the  latter  entertained  the  opinion 
that  the  liberator  was  wrecking  the  prospects  of  his 
country.  The  father  of  the  independent  parliament 
was  not  free  from  jealousy,  and  it  was  doubtless  with 
something  of  bitterness  that  he  beheld  the  younger  man 
displacing  him  in  the  leadership  of  the  Irish  masses. 
During  the  heat  of  the  contest  he  made  a  bitter  per- 
sonal attack  upon  O'Connell,  which  was  ignored.  The 
liberator  continued  to  battle  against  the  securities,  but 
never  did  he  permit  himself  to  be  swept  into  an  attack 
upon  the  venerable  statesman  who  had  done  so  much 
for  Ireland.  We  have  already  shown  that  his  crit- 
icisms of  Grattan  were  invariably  softened  by  tributes 
to  his  patriotism.  Immediately  after  his  death,  when 
his  son  became  a  candidate  to  succeed  him  in  parlia- 
ment, O'Connell  plunged  impetuously  into  the  fight  in 
his  behalf ;  and  in  this  speech  we  see  how  little  Grat- 
tan's  attack  upon  him  had  influenced  his  affection  for 
and  appreciation  of  Grattan : 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  269 

"We  are  met  on  this  melancholy  occasion  to  celebrate 
the  obsequies  of  the  greatest  man  Ireland  ever  saw.  The 
widowed  land  of  his  birth,  in  mourning  over  his  remains, 
feels  it  is  a  nation's  sorrow,  and  turns  with  the  anxiety 
of  a  parent  to  alleviate  the  grief  of  the  orphan  he  has 
left.  The  virtues  of  that  great  patriot  shone  brilliant, 
pure,  unsullied,  ardent,  unremitting,  glowing.  Oh,  I 
should  exhaust  the  dictionary  three  times  told,  ere  I  could 
enumerate  the  virtues  of  Grattan. 

"In  1778,  when  Ireland  was  shackled,  he  reared  the 
standard  of  independence;  and  in  1782  he  stood  forward 
as  the  champion  of  his  country,  achieving  gloriously  her 
independence.  Earnestly,  unremittingly  did  he  labor  for 
her ;  bitterly  did  he  deplore  her  wrongs,  and  if  man  could 
have  prevented  her  ruin — if  man  could  have  saved  her — 
Grattan  would  have  done  it. 

"After  the  disastrous  act  of  union,  which  met  his  most 
resolute  and  most  determined  opposition,  he  did  not  suf- 
fer despair  to  creep  over  his  heart  and  induce  him  to 
abandon  her,  as  was  the  case  with  too  many  others.  No ; 
he  remained  firm  to  his  duty  in  the  darkest  adversity; 
he  continued  his  unwearying  advocacy  of  his  country's 
rights.  Of  him  it  may  be  truly  said,  in  his  own  words — 
'He  watched  over  her  cradle,  he  followed  her  hearse.' " 

In  the  case  of  Lord  Plunkett  the  liberator  encoun- 
tered the  same  sort  of  opposition  as  from  Grattan,  and 
for  the  same  reason.  It  is  quite  probable  that  O'Con- 
nell  appealed  even  less  to  Plunkett  than  he  did  to 
Grattan,  in  that  the  former  was  less  in  sympathy  tem- 
peramentally with  democracy  or  agitation.  And  yet, 
in  his  letter  to  the  people  of  Ireland  in  1821,  in  which 
he  set  forth  his  reasons  for  refusing  his  support  to 
the  relief  bill  proposed  by  Plunkett,  we  find  him,  in 
referring  to  the  man  who  had  apologized  to  England 
for  the  agitation  of  the  liberator,  paying  a  tribute  to 
his  genius: 


270  THE  IRISH  ORATORS 

"As  a  professional  man,  I  am  perfectly  sensible  of  his 
merits.  I  have  known  the  powers  of  the  first  advocates 
of  modern  times — Erskine  and  Curran,  Romilly  and  Ball 
— and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  Mr.  Plunkett 
is  more  useful  than  any  one  of  them;  he  combines  a 
strength  of  mind  and  clearness  of  intellect  with  a  per- 
petual and  unceasing  readiness  in  a  degree  which  prob- 
ably very  few  men,  perhaps  no  man,  ever  possessed  be- 
fore. Others  may  exceed  him  in  the  higher  order  of 
eloquence,  but  in  practical  utility  as  an  advocate  there 
is  no  living  man  at  either  bar,  in  England  or  Ireland,  to 
compare  with  him." 

In  keeping  with  this  is  his  tribute  to  Lord 
Brougham,  with  whom  he  frequently  disagreed,  and 
from  whom  he  was  subjected  to  a  severe  attack  be- 
cause of  the  radicalism  of  his  demands.  The  fact  that 
he  fought  him  on  some  propositions  could  not  blind 
him  to  the  services  the  eloquent  Scotchman  had  ren- 
dered to  the  cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and 
we  see  him  declaring  that  "if  our  country  should  have 
occasion  to  erect  a  monument,  not  to  a  Wellington, 
but  to  perpetuate  the  resurrection  of  Ireland  from  the 
evils  of  the  union  and  the  curse  of  intolerance,  oppres- 
sion and  persecution,  the  first  name  written  over  the 
altar  of  justice  should  be  *Henry  Brougham.'  " 

In  the  case  of  Richard  Lalor  Shell  there  was  much 
to  provoke  O'Connell's  lasting  hostility.  The  brilliant 
little  genius  had  assailed  the  no-compromise  program 
of  the  liberator  with  extraordinary  eloquence  and  some 
effect,  and  when,  In  1821,  O'Connell  issued  his  annual 
address  to  the  people.  Shell  had  put  forth  a  counter- 
address  assailing  the  leader  with  bitterness  and  spleen. 
During  the  dark  days  of  the  movement,  with  dissen- 
sion from  within,  and  proscription  from  without,  Sheil 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  271 

had  stubbornly  declined  to  yield  on  the  veto  and  had 
charged  O'Connell  with  responsibility  for  the  lack 
of  union.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  liberator  that 
throughout  these  controversies  his  impatience  with 
Sheil  never  caused  him  to  lose  sight  of  his  remarkable 
capacity  for  good.  In  the  very  first  brush  between 
them,  he  had  taken  occasion  to  pay  him  the  highest 
possible  tribute. 

"Let  my  young  friend  join  this  standard,"  he  had  said, 
"and  soon  shall  he  become  a  leader.  To  the  superiority 
of  his  talent  we  shall  cheerfully  yield,  and  give  him  that 
station  in  his  country's  cause  to  which  his  high  genius 
entitles  him." 

The  unique  quality  of  mind  which  made  it  possible 
for  him  to  exalt  others  to  his  own  depreciation,  and  to 
measure  properly  the  virtues  of  men  who  saw  no  virtue 
in  him,  made  ultimate  success  possible. 

In  1823  a  memorable  meeting  of  gentlemen  took 
place  in  a  private  house.  The  subject  of  discussion 
was  the  state  of  the  country,  the  prospects  for  emanci- 
pation, the  lamentable  lack  of  aggressive  organization 
and  agitation.  It  was  the  consensus  of  opinion  that 
the  hour  had  struck  for  an  audacious  dash  for  religious 
and  civil  liberty.  The  most  virile  character  in  the  com- 
pany was  Daniel  O'Connell.  In  a  moment  of  inspira- 
tion he  turned  to  a  little  man  in  the  room  and  chal- 
lenged him  to  join  in  the  organization  of  a  new  and 
broader  movement  for  emancipation,  and  to  cooperate 
in  conveying  the  message  to  the  waiting  millions.  The 
little  man  accepted  the  challenge — and  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell and  Richard  Lalor  Sheil — united  at  last — passed 
from  the  house  of  their  mutual  friend  to  launch  the 


272  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

great  and  ultimately  irresistible  Catholic  association 
which  was  to  stir  old  Ireland  to  its  foundation,  and 
after  six  years  of  unparalleled  activity  to  crown  the 
cause  with  victory. 

V 

On  April  twenty-fifth,  1823,  a  few  men  met  in 
rooms  in  Sackville  Street,  Dublin,  and  launched  the 
tremendous  organization  which  Lecky,  the  historian, 
was  to  pronounce  "one  of  the  most  powerful  political 
bodies  ever  known  in  history."  And  yet,  how  insig- 
nificant, how  inauspicious  the  beginning!  Less  than 
fifty  men  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  association  that 
was  to  embrace  the  major  part  of  Ireland  within  two 
years.  There  was  something  almost  pathetic  in  the 
speech  of  O'Connell  on  the  occasion  of  the  initial 
meeting  in  which  he  apologized  for  taking  the  initia- 
tive on  the  ground  that  "some  one"  had  to  make  it  his 
business.  It  is  surprising  to  find  that  with  only  ten 
members  necessary  to  a  quorum,  the  business  of  the 
association  in  its  early  days  was  frequently  postponed 
for  want  of  the  necessary  number.  On  one  occasion 
we  find  O'Connell  rushing  from  the  room  just  before 
the  hour  set  for  the  meeting,  seizing  two  reluctant 
and  astonished  young  priests  from  a  book  store,  and 
dragging  them  into  the  rooms  of  the  association  just 
in  time  to  form  a  quorum. 

But  this  apathetic  attitude  was  only  temporary.  A 
little  while,  and  the  marvelous  eloquence  of  O'Connell 
and  Shell,  thundering  from  a  hundred  rostrums,  in  all 
sections,  aroused  the  masses  to  a  realization  of  their 
opportunity.     And  it  was  the  masses  that  O'Connell 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  273 

sought.  The  curse  of  the  movement  for  emancipation 
in  the  past  had  been  that  the  active  workers  had  been 
confined  to  the  aristocratic  element.  The  milHons 
looked  on  as  spectators — a  thing  apart.  It  was  the 
mission  and  the  purpose  of  O'Connell  to  harness  this 
tremendous  power  to  the  chariot  of  emancipation. 
This  he  proposed  to  do  by  making  them  members  of 
the  association  through  the  payment  of  a  shilling  a 
year.  The  amount  was  small,  but  every  peasant  who 
paid  his  penny  a  month  would  know  that  he  too  was 
enlisted  in  the  war.  And  in  the  end  the  shillings  would 
amount  to  pounds.  In  addition  to  this  plan  of  enlist- 
ing the  interest  of  the  masses,  he  proposed  to  recruit 
the  clergy,  and  to  make  them  the  leaders  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  priests  and  the  people — a  new  idea,  a  dy- 
namic idea.  And  it  worked.  Within  a  little  while  the 
association  had  a  great  working  income — an  income 
with  which  to  carry  on  a  propaganda  through  the 
press,  to  defray  parliamentary  expenses,  to  meet  the 
necessities  of  the  law,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  an 
agent  in  London  to  look  after  the  w^ork  in  parliament. 
Before  the  end  of  1824  the  Catholic  Rent,  as  this  was 
called,  amounted  to  nine  hundred  pounds  a  week,  and 
ere  the  expiration  of  another  year  it  had  reached  the 
amazing  figure  of  from  a  thousand  to  twelve  hundred 
pounds  a  week.  Little  wonder  that  England  was 
startled  in  contemplating  the  possibilities  of  poverty- 
stricken  but  patriotic  Ireland. 

And  how  was  it  done? 

By  organization,  by  agitation,  through  the  amalga- 
mation of  all  classes,  Paddy,  the  peasant,  linking  arms 
with  the  peer,  and  led  on  by  the  priest — now  a  mili- 
tant force.    The  little  island  was  lashed  into  a  storm 


274  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

by  the  ferocity  of  O'Connell's  attacks  upon  the  govern- 
ment, his  expose  of  its  iniquities,  his  shaming  of  the 
pusillanimity  of  the  people.  He  shocked  them  into 
activity.  At  the  first  aggregate  meeting  following  the 
perfection  of  the  organization  he  struck  the  keynote  of 
his  campaign  in  the  declaration  that  the  Catholics  would 
either  stand  up  and  fight  or  submit  to  continuous  in- 
dignities and  oppression.  Referring  to  the  generous 
manner  in  which  they  had  abandoned  their  agitation, 
out  of  deference  to  the  visiting  monarch,  he  exclaimed : 

"At  that  period  I  defy  the  tongue  of  malignity — ^the 
most  shameless  audacity  of  that  compound  of  stupidity 
and  slanderous  villainy — produced  from  the  crazed  brain 
of  a  reverend  fox-hunter,  and  translated  afterward  into 
better  English  by  his  coadjutor — The  Warder,  even  to 
assert  that  anything  was  wanting  on  the  part  of  the  Cath- 
olics. I  defy,  too,  the  scribblers  in  that  paper's  credi- 
ble ally — that  reservoir  of  baseness  and  calumny,  in  which 
truth  never  appears  but  by  accident,  The  Mail;  I  defy 
their  virulence — nay,  I  would  appeal  to  their  candor,  if 
of  such  an  attribute  they  could  for  a  moment  be  sup- 
posed to  be  possessed,  to  point  out  any  one  occasion — 
any  one  in  which  the  Catholics,  either  in  act,  in  writing 
or  in  speeching,  can  be  truly  said  to  have,  in  the  slight- 
est degree,  been  accessory  to  the  failure  of  our  gracious 
monarch's  blessed  work  of  conciliation. 

"And  what  has  been  the  result  of  our  having  so  mer- 
itoriously conducted  ourselves?  Need  I  ask  you?  Has 
it  not  been  that  our  cause  is  abandoned,  and  that  we  have 
neglected  our  duty  to  ourselves?  We  have  lain  qui- 
escent and  permitted  the  daily  promulgation  of  Orange 
calumny,  fearful  of  infringing  the  commands  of  our  sov- 
ereign. 

"We  saw  a  portion  of  the  English  press^  (but  certainly 
with  powers  equaling  only  the  dull  stupidity  of  the  bird 
of  night)  teem  forth  monstrous  libels  impeaching  our 


DANIEL  O'CONNELt  27S 

loyalty.  We  saw  the  stall-fed  church  dignitary  raise 
against  us  the  voice  of  sectarian  intolerance  and  bigotry ; 
we  saw  our  religion  foully  traduced  and  ridiculed  and 
stigmatized,  and  we  were  silent,  until  our  enemies  were 
believed;  and  the  Catholics  have  suffered  accordingly. 

"But  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  experiment  becomes 
dangerous.  The  Catholics  are  men — are  Irishmen,  and 
feel  within  their  burning  breasts  the  force  of  natural 
rights  and  the  injustice  of  natural  oppression.  .  .  . 
And  will  you,  my  countrymen,  submit  to  this  bartering  of 
your  privileges  and  liberties?  Will  you,  like  torpid 
slaves,  lie  under  the  lash  of  the  oppressor?  If  we  are 
not  free,  let  us  at  least  prove  ourselves  worthy  of  be- 
ing so." 

This  was  the  spirit  of  the  new  crusade.  It  was  a 
declaration  of  uncompromising  war.  It  aroused  the 
people  as  they  had  not  been  aroused  before.  No  armis- 
tice henceforth,  no  new  treaty  of  Limerick,  no  com- 
promise, nothing  but  unqualified  and  complete  emanci- 
pation— and  until  that  hour  war  and  nothing  but  w-ar ! 
The  meetings  of  the  association  took  on  something  of 
the  importance  of  a  parliament,  dividing  public  in- 
terest with  the  Imperial  law  makers  of  Saint  Stephens. 
Here  grievances  were  discussed,  wrongs  denounced, 
rights  demanded,  and  business  was  transacted  with 
the  punctiliousness  of  properly  and  legally  accredited 
representatives.  In  the  great  meetings  over  the  coun- 
try O'Connell  spoke  a  language  that  skirted  the  sedi- 
tious. He  no  longer  attempted  to  conciliate — ^he  as- 
sailed. He  no  longer  preached  peace  at  any  price — he 
hinted  of  war.  His  methods  at  this  time  have  been 
criticized  as  those  of  a  demagogue.  If  by  that  it  is 
meant  that  he  talked  "down"  to  the  people  who  would 
not  have  understood  the  language  of  a  debating  society 
r— then  he  was  a  demagogue,    Lecky,  in  his  compara- 


276  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

lively  fair  work  on  O'Connell,  loves  to  characterize  his 
speeches  at  this  time  as  "mob  oratory."  As  an  illus- 
tration of  his  meaning  we  submit  an  extract  from  a 
speech  made  in  1824 — a  speech  during  the  delivery  of 
which  he  swept  the  gamut  of  emotions,  arousing  the 
people  to  a  frenzy  of  enthusiasm,  convulsing  them 
with  laughter,  transmitting  to  them  something  of  his 
own  burning  indignation.  He  was  making  the  point 
that  England  had  played  Ireland  for  a  clown,  conced- 
ing rights  when  the  empire  was  in  danger,  punishing 
in  days  of  peace  in  return  for  Erin's  loyalty  in  time  of 
trouble. 

"In  the  experimental  despotism  which  England  fas- 
tened on  Ireland,"  he  said,  "her  mighty  appetite  for  slav- 
ery was  not  gorged ;  and  because  our  unfortunate  country 
was  proximate,  and  polite  in  the  endurance  of  the  bur- 
den so  mercilessly  imposed,  it  was  inferred  that  slavery 
could  be  safely  extended  far  and  wide,  and  an  attempt 
was  therefore  made  on  the  American  colonies.  Despot- 
ism, in  fact,  is  an  all-craving  and  voracious  animal;  in- 
crease of  appetite  grows  on  what  it  feeds,  until  endurance 
became  at  length  too  vile ;  and  the  Americans — the  great 
God  of  Heaven  bless  them  for  it  (laughter  and  applause) 
— shook  off  the  thraldom  which  a  parliament,  represent- 
ing an  inglorious  and  ignominious  funding  system,  had 
sought  to  impose.  (Cheers.)  Oh,  it  was  a  noble  sight 
to  see  them  in  open  battle,  contending  for  their  liberties. 
The  recollection  of  the  circumstance  cheers  and  invig- 
orates me  in  my  progress ;  it  gives  me  an  elasticity  which 
all  the  fatigues  of  the  day  can  not  depress — (cheers) — 

"  The  friends  they  tried  were  by  their  side — 
And  the  foes  they  dared  before  them.' 

"Wives  animated  their  husbands  to  the  combat;  they 
bade  them  contend  for  their  children,  for  the  dear  pledges 


DANIEL  P'CONNELL  277 

of  their  mutual  love — (hear,  hear) — mothers  enjoined 
their  sons  to  remember  those  who  bore  them — the  fair 
sex  bade  their  lovers  earn  their  favors  in  a  Svell  f oughten 
field/  and  to  return  arrayed  in  glory.  They  did  so — God 
of  Heaven  forever  bless  them.  (Loud  cheering,  mingled 
with  laughter.)  Thanks  to  the  valor  and  patriotism  of 
Washington,  a  name  dear  to  every  lover  of  liberty,  the 
Americans  achieved  their  independence,  and  Providence 
spared  the  instrument  to  witness  it.     (Loud  applause.) 

''The  independence  of  America  was  the  first  blush  of 
dawn  to  the  Catholic,  after  a  long  and  dreary  night  of 
degradation.  Seventy  years  had  they  been  in  a  land  of 
bondage,  but,  like  the  chosen  people,  Providence  had 
watched  over  them  and  redeemed  them  for  the  service 
of  their  country.  The  same  Providence  exists  now,  and 
why  should  we  despair?    (Cheers.) 

*Tn  1778  Holland  assumed  a  threatening  aspect  and 
some  wise  friend  (a  laugh)  whispered  into  the  ear  of 
England,  'Search  the  rich  resources  of  the  Irish  heart; 
give  to  their  arms  a  stimulus  to  exertion;  delude  them 
with  promises  if  you  will,  but  convert  their  power  into 
your  strength  and  render  them  subservient  to  your  pur- 
poses.' England  took  the  advice;  the  meteor  flag  was 
unfurled ;  the  Danish,  Spanish  and  Dutch  fleets  peopled 
a  wide  waste  of  waters;  but  what  of  Ireland?  Oh,  al- 
though long  neglected,  she  was  faithful  in  that  day  of 
need;  fifty  thousand  seamen  were  produced  in  a  month; 
the  Volunteers  organized;  a  federate  independence  was 
created;  and  the  Catholic  cause  was  debated.  But  lo! 
peace  came,  and  gratitude  vanished ;  and  justice  was  not 
abroad;  and  obligations  remained  unrequited;  and  the 
Catholics  were  forgotten. 

"Forgotten?  No.  Acts  were  passed  against  them. 
(Loud  and  long  continued  applause.) 

"Yes,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  act  taking  from 
them  the  power  to  vote  at  vestries  was  passed  at  this 
time ;  so  if  the  rectors  agreed  to  build  a  church,  the  poor 
Catholics  could  not  ask,  'Who  is  to  go  into  it?' — (laugh- 
ter) .    Or  if ,  taking  cold,  he  required  repairs,  they  could 


278  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

not  order  him  fifty  shillings  to  buy  window  glass  (laugh- 
ter). Next  came  the  French  Revolution.  That  revolu- 
tion produced  some  good,  but  it  was  not  without  alloy; 
it  was  mingled  with  much  impiety.  Liberty  and  religion 
were  first  separated.  The  experiment  w^as  a  bad  one. 
It  had  much  of  French  levity  in  it  and  a  deal  that  was 
much  worse.  The  people  of  France  should  have  remem- 
bered that  liberty  is  the  first  instinct  of  a  generous  re- 
ligion.   (Applause.) 

"But  I  am  trespassing  on  the  time  of  the  meeting  (no, 
no,  no)  and  in  some  measure  wandering  (go  on).  Well, 
I  like  the  subject,  and  I  will  go  on  a  little  longer.  I 
was  saying  the  French  Revolution  produced  much  good. 
So  it  did.  Dumourier  gained  the  battle  of  Jemappe — 
the  French  crossed  the  Pyrenees — General  Biron  was  in 
Italy — England  looked  benignly  on  Ireland — it  served  her 
interest,  it  was  her  policy  to  do  so,  and  she  passed  an- 
other act  in  favor  of  the  Irish  Catholics — (applause). 
The  Irish  were  made  more  thirsty  for  liberty  by  the  drop 
that  fell  on  their  parched  lips — (applause). 

"There  is  not  one  who  hears  me  who  does  not  mourn 
in  aflection,  in  dress  or  in  heart,  for  some  relative  or 
friend  who  fell  on  the  field  of  battle  (hear).  My  own 
heartstrings  were  torn  asunder  by  the  loss  of  a  beloved 
brother,  the  companion  of  my  youth  and  the  offspring 
of  the  same  loins.  A  kinsman  of  mine,  too,  died  at  the 
storming  of  St.  Sebastian.  Three  times  did  he  mount 
the  breach,  and  he  fell  at  last,  covered  with  wounds  and 
with  glory — (applause).  He  was  as  gay  and  as  lovely 
a  youth  as  ever  shed  his  blood  in  defense  of  his  country, 
and  fair  withal  as  ever  trod  the  green  sward  of  Erin — 
(much  applause).  I  can  not  choose  but  name  him.  It 
was  Lieutenant  John  McConnell,  of  the  Fifty-third  Reg- 
iment. And  what  did  the  relatives  of  these  brave  men 
gain  by  this?  What  the  Catholics  of  Ireland?  Why, 
the  Marquis  of  Douro  was  made  Duke  of  Wellington. 

".  .  .  In  Ireland  we  have  been  blamed  for  being  agi- 
tators. I  thank  my  God  for  being  one.  Whatever  little 
we  have  gained,  we  have  gained  by  agitation,  while  we 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  279 

uniformly  lose  by  moderation.  The  last  word  is  repeated 
so  often  that  I  am  sick  of  it.  I  wonder  some  gentlemen 
do  not  teach  a  parrot  to  repeat  it.  If  we  gain  nothing 
by  moderation,  it  costs  us  something.  Our  religion  is 
reviled,  and  we  thank  the  revilers ;  they  spit  in  our  faces, 
and  we  paid  'em  for  it — (laughter  and  applause).  This 
reminds  me  of  Shylock  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice — 

"  'Fair  sir,  you  spat  on  me  on  Wednesday  last ; 

On  such  a  day  you  called  me  dog ; 

And  for  these  courtesies  I  lend  you  so  much  monies.'  " 

Such  was  the  tenor  of  the  association  speeches  of 
O'Connell.  It  was  a  new  note  to  England.  The  praise 
of  the  revolutionary  action  of  the  Americans  had  an 
ominous  sound.  The  pulsating  intensity  of  the  people 
was  threatening.  Their  organization  and  unification 
were  more  perfect  than  ever  before,  and  Wellington 
wrote  to  Peel  that  civil  w^ar  would  result  unless  the 
association  should  be  put  down.  In  February,  1825, 
the  government  determined  to  crush  the  organiza- 
tion which  had  become,  in  the  hands  of  O'Connell,  a 
serious  menace.  The  wildest  stories  w^ere  disseminated 
over  England,  among  them  one  to  the  effect  that  it 
was  a  Popish  plot  intended  for  the  massacre  of  the 
Irish  Protestants!  When  the  bill  was  brought  into 
parliament  the  Catholics  swamped  the  house  with  peti- 
tions against  it,  and  Lord  Brougham  exerted  his  mag- 
nificent eloquence  against  it,  but  to  no  avail. 

Lord  Liverpool,  in  advocating  the  bill,  charged  that 
the  association  evaded  and  nullified  the  law,  and  levied 
an  unauthorized  tax  upon  the  Catholics.  This  was  a 
new  wrinkle — a  voluntary  contribution,  gladly  given, 
twisted  into  an  extortion  of  the  poor !  During  the  de- 
bate O'Connell  sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  house — a  silent 


280  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

spectator,  looking  on  contemptuously.  The  answer  of 
the  Irish  to  this  latest  insult  was  an  ovation  to  O'Con- 
nell  on  his  return  to  Dublin.  Met  by  an  immense 
throng,  he  was  escorted  to  his  house  in  Merriam 
Square  where  he  delivered  a  stirring  speech  from  the 
balcony;  and  when,  a  few  days  later,  a  meeting  was 
held  at  Ann  Street  Chapel,  the  house  was  packed  five 
hours  before  the  scheduled  time.  The  liberator  ap- 
peared on  this  occasion,  defiantly  arrayed  in  the  uni- 
form of  the  association — blue  frock  with  black  silk 
buttons,  a  black  velvet  collar,  a  gilt  button  on  the 
shoulders,  white  waistcoat  and  white  trousers. 

The  spirit  would  not  down.  The  ghost  of  the  mur- 
dered liberties  of  Ireland  could  not  be  laid.  The  de- 
termination of  O'Connell  could  not  be  thwarted;  and 
hardly  had  the  association  been  put  down  when  another 
was  formed  in  such  a  fashion  as  not  to  be  amenable 
to  the  law.    And  the  fight  went  on. 

There  was  something  of  fatality  in  the  stupidity  of 
the  government,  in  those  days,  that  advanced  the 
Catholic  cause. 

The  Catholic  Relief  bill  of  1825  passed  the  house  of 
commons  and  while  not  at  all  satisfactory,  its  passage 
would  have  done  much  toward  defeating  the  cause  of 
unqualified  emancipation.  When  it  reached  the  lords, 
the  Duke  of  York,  who  must  have  been  as  stupid  as  he 
was  bigoted,  in  presenting  a  petition  against  it,  de- 
livered an  unconstitutional  and  indecent  speech  which 
resulted  in  its  rejection. 

The  effect  was  tremendous.  The  speech  of  the  duke 
was  printed  in  letters  of  gold  and  hung  in  the  homes  of 
the  Orangemen  and  in  public  places,  and  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  Catholics  burst  into  flame.     O'Connell 


c 
Q 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  281 

could  have  askeH  nothing  better.  The  agitator  made 
the  most  of  his  opportunity  in  a  speech  on  the  rejec- 
tion; and  in  referring  to  a  pecuHarly  obnoxious  utter- 
ance of  the  Marquis  of  Anglesea,  he  gave  the  states- 
man of  Saint  Stephens  a  start: 


"He  said  now  is  the  time  to  fight.  But,  most  noble 
marquis,  we  are  not  going  to  fight  at  all,  and  above  all 
things,  most  noble  marquis,  we  are  not  going  to  fight  now 
under  favor.  This  may  be  your  time  to  fight — you  may 
want  us  to  fight  ere  long  with  you,  as  you  wanted  us 
before — your  glories,  and  your  medals,  and  your  digni- 
ties, and  your  titles,  were  bought  by  the  young  blood  of 
Catholic  Ireland.  We  fought,  IMarquis  of  Anglesea,  and 
you  know  it  well — we  fought  and  you  are  marquis ;  but 
if  we  had  not  fought  with  you,  your  island  of  Anglesea 
would  ere  this  have  sunk  into  a  cabbage  garden.  And 
where  would  now  have  been  the  mighty  conqueror  of 
Europe ;  he  who  had  talent  to  command  victory,  and 
judgment  to  look  for  services,  and  not  creed  to  reward 
men  for  merits  and  not  for  professions  of  faith ;  where 
would  he  have  been  if  Ireland  had  not  stood  with  you? 
I  myself  have  worn,  not  only  the  trappings  of  woe,  but 
the  emblems  of  sincere  mourning,  for  more  than  one 
gallant  relative  of  mine  who  have  shed  their  blood  un- 
der your  commands.  We  can  fight — we  will  fight  when 
England  wants  us.  But  we  will  not  fight  against  her 
at  present,  and  I  trust  we  will  not  fight  for  her  at  all  un- 
til she  does  us  justice. 

"But,  most  noble  marquis,  though  your  soldiers  fought 
gallantly  and  well  with  you,  in  a  war  which  they  were 
told  was  just  and  necessary,  are  you  quite  sure  the  sol- 
diers will  fight  in  a  crusade  against  the  unarmed  and 
wretched  peasantry  of  Ireland?  Your  speech  is  pub- 
lished ;  it  will,  when  read  in  Armagh  and  the  neighbor- 
ing counties,  give  joy,  and  will  be  celebrated  in  the  next 
Orange  procession ;  and  again,  as  before,  Catholic  blood 
will  be  shed ;  but,  most  noble  marquis,  the  earth  has  not 


;^  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

covered  all  the  blood  that  has  been  so  shed ;  it  cries  yet  to 
heaven  for  vengeance,  and  not  to  man;  that  blood  may- 
yet  bring  on  an  unfortunate  hour  of  retribution ;  and  if 
it  do,  what  have  you  to  fight  with  ?  Count  you  on  a  gal- 
lant army  ? 

*'Let  me  tell  you  this  story,  Sir.  I  am  but  an  humble 
individual.  It  happened  to  me,  not  many  months  ago, 
to  be  going  through  England ;  my  family  were  in  a  car- 
riage, on  the  box  of  which  I  was  placed ;  there  came  up, 
on  the  road,  eight  or  ten  sergeants  and  corporals  with 
two  hundred  and  fifty  recruits.  I  perceived  at  once  the 
countenances  of  my  unfortunate  countrymen  laughing  as 
they  went  along,  for  no  other  reason  than  because  they 
were  alive.  They  saw  me,  and  some  of  them  recognized 
me;  they  instantly  burst  from  their  sergeants  and  cor- 
porals, formed  round  my  carriage,  and  gave  me  three 
cheers,  most  noble  marquis.  Well,  may  God  bless  4:hem, 
wherever  they  are,  poor  fellows.  Oh,  you  reckon  with- 
out your  host,  let  me  tell  you,  when  you  think  that  a 
British  army  will  trample  on  a  set  of  petitioners  for  their 
rights — ^beggars  for  a  little  charity,  who  are  looking  up 
to  you  with  eyes  lifted  and  hands  bent  down.  You  will 
not  fight  us  now,  most  noble  marquis;  and  let  me  tell 
you,  if  the  battle  comes,  you  shall  not  have  the  choice 
of  your  position,  either." 


This  daring  warning  emanating  from  the  hated  agi- 
tator sent  chills  dow-n  the  spines  of  the  government 
officials  and  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the 
Irish  people.  O'Connell  had  dared  to  keep  the  people 
reminded  of  the  methods  by  which  the  Americans  had 
won  their  independence,  and  had  blessed  the  rebels  for 
their  rebellion.  He  had  dared  press  upon  the  Irish 
the  patent  fact  that  they  had  been  fighting  English  bat- 
tles and  receiving,  as  reward  for  their  blood,  oppress- 
ive legislation.  He  now  dared  throw  out  the  sugges- 
tion that  the  red  coats  themselves  covered  too  many 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  283 

Irish  hearts  to  make  an  appeal  to  arms  against  the 
Irish  safe.    But  this  was  mere  oratory. 

In  the  autumn  of  1825  O'Connell  determined  to 
give  the  English  a  practical  manifestation  of  his  power. 
There  was  an  election  in  Water  ford  where  the  Beres- 
fords  had  long  been  lords  of  the  soil  and  masters  of 
their  tenants.  The  miserable  serfs  had  voted  under 
the  lash  of  their  masters.  They  had  voted  to  parlia- 
ment the  enemies  of  their  cause — because  they  dare 
not  do  otherwise.  In  1825  Lord  George  Beresford 
announced  his  candidacy — and  O'Connell  audaciously 
determined  to  challenge  his  pretensions.  The  agitator 
went  down  to  Waterford  and  in  a  two-hours  speech 
aroused  the  spirit  and  pride  of  the  tenants.  Another 
candidate  was  brought  out,  and  Lord  Beresford  was 
treated  to  the  unique  shock  of  an  overwhelming  de- 
feat in  his  own  bailiwick.  The  effect  was  magical. 
England  began  to  understand  that  behind  the  words  of 
O'Connell,  men  were  massed.  Better  still,  the  long 
subjugated  Irish  began  to  realize  that  their  liberation 
was  in  their  own  hands.  This  was  the  beginning  of 
the  end. 

In  1828  when  the  Duke  of  Wellington  went  into 
office,  and  Fitzgerald,  the  member  for  Clare,  accepted 
the  position  of  president  of  the  board  of  trade,  he  was 
compelled  to  return  to  his  people  for  re-election.  The 
Catholic  association  had  previously  determined  to  op- 
pose the  election  of  any  Irish  member  who  accepted 
office  under  the  Wellington  regime.  A  prominent 
Tory,  Sir  David  Rose,  either  drawing  upon  his  own 
imagination  or  acting  upon  an  idle  rumor,  met  Fitz- 
gerald on  the  street  and  suggested  that  O'Connell 
might  run  against  him.     The  idea  seemed  prepos- 


284  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

terous.  The  oath  was  prohibitive  against  a  Catholic 
and  no  one  of  the  CathoHc  faith  had  stood  for  parHa- 
ment  since  the  far-off  days  when  all  the  members  of 
the  commons  were  of  the  Roman  faith.  Then  again 
Fitzgerald,  while  in  parliament,  had  acted  with  far 
more  decency  toward  the  Catholics  than  the  vast  ma- 
jority In  the  house,  and  was,  consequently,  not  unpop- 
ular among  them.  In  addition  to  all  that,  he  was  a 
man  of  ability  and  an  ideal  landlord.  However  the 
suggestion  alarmed  him  and  he  approached  O'Connell. 
It  was  the  first  intimation  of  such  a  thing  that  had  come 
to  him.  He  had  not  thought  of  running;  nor  did  he 
look  at  first  with  favor  upon  the  project.  Tlien  an 
inspiration  struck  him.  Why  not?  Had  not  the  time 
come  to  assert  the  claims  of  the  Catholics  to  a  seat  in 
parliament?    Would  not  a  test  force — the  issue? 

That  very  night  the  editor  of  the  Dublin  Post,  with 
whom  O'Connell  had  not  been  on  friendly  terms,  was 
startled  to  see  the  agitator  enter  his  sanctum,  hold 
forth  his  hand  with  the  exclamation,  "Let  us  be 
friends,"  and  announce  his  candidacy  for  Clare.  In 
an  instant  all  enmity  was  forgotten.  The  candidate 
sat  down  in  the  office  of  the  Post  and  dashed  off  his 
address  to  the  people.  That  night  Dublin  was  wild 
with  excitement.  The  announcement  of  O'Connell, 
almost  smacked  of  revolution.  The  next  day  all  Ire- 
land was  seething.  Across  the  channel  the  English 
threw  up  their  hands  in  holy  horror.  The  association 
buckled  on  the  armor  and  prepared  for  battle.  Funds 
were  Immediately  subscribed.  Accompanied  by  Shell, 
the  officers  of  the  association,  and  the  celebrated 
Father  Murphy,  O'Connell  drove  from  Dublin  in  a 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  285 

carriage  with  four  horses  on  his  way  to  the  scene  of 
conflict.  The  citizens  gave  him  an  ovation  as  he  drove 
through  the  streets.  "May  God  bless  you — may  you 
succeed/'  shouted  the  people.  The  contest  was  ex- 
ceedingly bitter.  The  aristocracy  and  the  landlords 
resorted  to  their  old  methods  of  intimidation  without 
success.  One  possessor  of  a  great  estate  met  O'Con- 
nell  in  the  street,  a  brace  of  pistols  in  his  pockets.  "By 
G — ,  O'Connell,"  he  exclaimed  passionately,  "if  you 
canvass  one  of  my  tenants  I'll  shoot  you.'*  With  an 
expansive  smile  the  agitator  replied,  "By  G — ,  I'll  can- 
vass every  one  of  them" — and  he  did,  and  he  captured 
them.  Father  Murphy  and  Sheil  made  passionate  ap- 
peals to  the  tenantry  to  assert  their  manhood.  The 
result  was  astounding.  O'Connell  was  triumphantly 
returned. 

The  effect  was  magical.  The  Irish  people  were  in- 
toxicated with  their  success,  and  even  the  military 
made  no  effort  to  restrain  their  enthusiasm.  The  au- 
thorities confidently  expected  a  revolution.  The  Mar- 
quis of  Anglesea  had  seven  thousand  soldiers  in  readi- 
ness but  he  was  careful  to  keep  them  concealed.  The 
fact  that  O'Connell  was  followed  by  thousands  on  the 
way  back  to  Dublin  did  not  minimize  the  fear.  In  Lon- 
don the  indignation  was  intense.  A  Protestant  club 
was  immediately  formed.  The  lord  lieutenant  wrote 
back  to  London  that  he  would  undertake  to  maintain 
order  for  a  year — no  longer.  In  one  day  two  thousand 
meetings  were  held  in  Ireland.  Religious  feeling  ran 
high.  The  Marquis  of  Anglesea  issued  a  proclamation 
to  put  down  disturbances  in  the  north,  and  O'Connell 
followed  with  a  proclamation  to  put  down  disturbances 


286  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

in  the  south.  Already  he  was  called  "King  Dan."  He 
was  the  master  of  Ireland — the  commander-in-chief 
of  four  million  men. 

He  made  no  attempt  to  take  his  seat  but  made  free 
use  of  his  franking  privileges.  But  the  issue  was 
drawn — and  had  to  be  met — and  Wellington  bowed 
to  the  inevitable.  The  Emancipation  bill  was  quickly 
passed,  and  on  April  thirteenth,  1829,  it  was  presented 
to  the  king  for  his  signature.  It  was  like  passing  him 
some  quinine  on  a  spoon.  As  he  took  up  his  pen  he 
exclaimed  in  childish  petulance : 

"The  Duke  of  Wellington  is  king  of  England, 
O'Connell  is  king  of  Ireland,  and  I  suppose  I  am  only 
dean  of  Windsor." 

And  he  signed  it! 

In  glancing  over  the  bill  the  king  found  some  oint- 
ment for  his  wounded  feelings — it  contained  a  spiteful 
clause  to  the  effect  that  no  Catholic  should  sit  in  par- 
Hament  unless  elected  after  the  passage  of  the  bill. 

Notwithstanding  the  clause,  O'Connell  determined 
to  claim  his  seat.  But  while  his  speech  at  the  bar  of 
the  house  was  an  unanswerable  legal  argument,  ex- 
pressed in  the  most  irreproachable  language,  and  made 
a  profound  impression  upon  the  distinguished  English 
company  that  packed  the  house  and  galleries,  he  was 
refused  the  seat  to  which  the  people  had  elected  him. 

Another  stupid  blunder — it  only  intensified  the  loy- 
alty of  his  followers,  and  when  he  issued  his  second 
address  to  the  people  of  Clare  and  journeyed  back  to 
the  country  he  was  acclaimed  a  hero,  and  received 
everywhere  as  a  conqueror.  Towns  were  illuminated. 
Thousands  thronged  and  surged  around  him.  He  was 
drawn  into  Clare  in  a  triumphal  car  and  returned  with- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  287 

out  a  contest.  Worn  with  the  struggle,  the  liberator 
then  turned  happily  toward  his  beloved  Darrynane  to 
reflect  among  the  rugged  mountains,  and  on  the  white 
shore  of  the  sea,  on  the  future  struggle  for  the  repeal 
of  the  union,  to  which  he  stood  pledged  to  the  people 
of  Ireland. 

VI 

O'Connell  carried  to  the  imperial  parliament  an  in- 
ternational reputation.  In  every  Catholic  country  in 
the  world  his  name  had  become  all  but  a  household 
word.  It  is  illuminative  of  his  status  to  know  that 
when  the  Belgians  elected  their  king  three  votes  were 
cast  for  the  Irish  liberator.  The  people  of  France, 
especially  in  political  circles,  were  frankly  curious 
about  him,  and  his  name  and  achievements  were  com- 
mon topics  in  Parisian  salons.  Among  his  colleagues 
in  the  house  he  was  both  admired  and  hated.  The  ma- 
jority of  those  who  had  been  forced  to  vote  for  the 
Relief  bill  could  not  forgive  the  man  who  had  com- 
pelled them  to  swallow  their  prejudices  and  cast  a  vote 
for  toleration.  Nor  could  the  averae'e  Enp-lishman 
forget  that  he  was  an  Irishman — and  we  shall  see  tliat 
O'Connell  had  no  intention  of  permitting  them  to  for- 
get it.  The  king  hated  him  with  all  the  ferocity  of  a 
coarse  nature.  His  majesty  habitually  spoke  of  him  as 
"that  damn  O'Connell." 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  his  powers 
were  underestimated  or  that  he  numbered  among  his 
admirers  no  members  of  the  house  of  commons  or  the 
lords.  Lord  Palmerson  characterized  his  election  to 
the  house,  and  his  audacity  in  making  the  bolt  for  it, 
as  "sublime."    John  Bright,  while  differing  from  him 


288  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

on  many  subjects,  entertained  the  deepest  respect  for 
him — a  respect  which  was  increased  by  the  Hberator's 
uncompromising  opposition  to  human  slavery.  Ben- 
jamin Disraeli,  then  young  and  inexperienced,  but 
consumed  by  an  inordinate  ambition,  set  himself  the 
task  of  cultivating  O'Connell.  While  concentrating 
his  attention  largely  upon  legislation  affecting  Ireland, 
he  entered  earnestly  into  all  parliamentary  battles  for 
the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  oppressed,  and 
his  speeches  in  favor  of  universal  suffrage,  parlia- 
mentary reform,  law  reform,  the  emancipation  of  the 
Jews,  and  the  abolition  of  capital  punishment  forced 
upon  his  enemies  the  realization  of  the  breadth  of  his 
statesmanship. 

And  all  the  while  O'Connell  had  in  view  one  single 
thing — the  repeal  of  the  act  of  union,  and  the  restora- 
tion of  Grattan's  parliament  in  Dublin.  During  the 
first  years  of  his  parliamentary  career  he  refrained 
from  a  precipitate  attempt  to  force  his  views  upon  his 
hostile  colleagues,  and  exerted  himself  to  restrain  the 
impatience  of  his  countrymen.  In  truth  the  spirit  he 
had  aroused  in  a  long  apologetic  people  during  the 
progress  of  the  fight  for  emancipation  would  not  down. 
The  Marquis  of  Anglesea,  the  lord  lieutenant  of  Ire- 
land, in  an  effort  to  quell  the  disturbances  of  the  times 
issued  no  less  than  four  proclamations  within  a  month 
in  1830,  putting'  down  repeal  breakfasts,  and  in  the 
spring  of  the  following  year  the  government  committed 
the  stupid  blunder  of  arresting  O'Connell  in  his  own 
house  for  holding  "illegal  meetings."  Nothing  came 
of  the  arrest,  but  the  fact  that  it  had  been  made  did 
not  operate  as  a  harmonizer  in  Ireland. 

It  was  not  until  1833  that  O'Connell  found  the  op- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  289 

portunlty  he  sought  of  forcing  the  commons  to  listen 
to  a  recital  of  the  brutalities  and  butcheries  practised 
in  Ireland  in  the  administration  of  the  government. 
The  debate  on  the  Coercion  act  of  that  year  was  bitter 
and  brilliantly  conducted,  and  while  pitted  against  such  \ 
masters  as  Peel,  Stanley,  Macaulay  and  Brougham,  the 
champion  of  Ireland  created  a  profound  impression  by 
the  boldness  with  which  he  traced  the  outrages  in  his 
country  to  the  cold-blooded  brutality  of  the  govern- 
mental policy.  "You  gave  the  peasants  stone  for 
bread,  and  martial  law  for  justice,"  he  thundered  at 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  "You  have  brains  of  lead,  hearts  of 
stone  and  fangs  of  iron,"  he  shouted  at  the  Whigs. 
Turning  to  the  ministers  he  declared  that  their  bill  was  \ 
"bottomed  on  the  most  glaring  and  notorious  false-  ^ 
hoods."  He  denounced  the  suspension  of  the  habeas 
corpus  act  and  the  proposal  to  turn  the  accused  in  Ire- 
land over  to  the  tender  and  intelligent  mercies  of  a 
military  tribunal  as  infinitely  worse  than  the  practises 
which  had  resulted  in  the  American  revolution.  He 
never  permitted  the  English  to  forget  that  revolution. 

In  his  fight  on  the  Coercion  bill  O'Connell  did  not 
content  himself  with  a  mere  expose  of  the  infamies  of 
the  measure,  but  with  rare  parliamentary  generalship 
he  obstructed  its  progress  at  every  stage,  and  fur- 
nished a  precedent  that  was  to  be  an  inspiration  to 
Parnell  on  a  similar  occasion  years  later.  The  bill 
passed — but  there  could  be  no  hypocritical  pretension 
on  the  part  of  the  English  public  that  the  nature  of  the 
bill  was  misunderstood. 

The  following  year  the  liberator  was  forced  by  an 
insistent  public  opinion  he  could  not  withstand  to  bring 
forw^ard  a  n^otion  for  the  repeal  of  the  union  at  a  time 


290  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

when  nothing  could  possibly  have  been  accomplished. 
He  was  on  the  ground  and  understood  the  situation, 
but  the  impatient  repealers  of  Ireland  were  deter- 
mined upon  immediate  action.  The  motion  was  conse- 
quently brought  in,  overwhelmingly  lost,  and  the  cause 
of  repeal  was  set  back  by  at  least  nine  years. 

The  liberator  determined,  on  the  defeat  of  his  mo- 
tion, never  again  to  be  forced  into  action  against  his 
own  judgment.  He  understood  now  that  time  alone 
could  remedy  the  wrongs  of  years  through  constitu- 
tional methods. 

The  following  year  the  general  election  took  place 
and  O'Connell,  now  bent  upon  making  the  Irish  peo- 
ple an  essential  factor  in  English  politics,  by  punish- 
ing the  Tories  for  the  passage  of  the  Coercion  bill, 
threw  himself  passionately  into  the  contest  in  Ireland 
and  urged  the  Irishmen  in  the  manufacturing  centers 
of  England  to  support  the  Whigs.  The  result  was  the 
overthrow  of  the  Peel  ministry  and  the  semi-alliance 
between  the  Whigs  and  O'Connell.  This  countenanc- 
ing of  the  Whigs  on  the  part  of  the  liberator  was  one 
of  the  underlying  causes  of  the  defection  of  Young 
Ireland  a  few  years  later.  In  the  light  of  history,  how- 
ever, O'Connell  must  be  credited  with  having  made  a 
fairly  good  bargain  for  his  country  without  having 
stipulated  anything  for  himself.  An  historic  meet- 
ing was  held  at  the  home  of  Lord  John  Russell  be- 
tween the  leaders  of  the  Whig  party  and  the  liberator, 
and  a  working  arrangement  was  made.  The  result  was 
that  O'Connell  was  practically  permitted  to  name  the 
law  officers  in  Ireland  and  to  exercise  the  power  of 
veto  over  any  obnoxious  name  proposed  for  the  lord 
lieutenantship. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  291 

The  moment  the  public  learned  of  the  conference  at 
Lord  John  Russell's  the  Tories  undertook  to  embarrass 
the  ministry  of  Lord  Melbourne — the  Whig  prime  min- 
ister— by  disseminating  the  story  that  it  had  been 
forced  to  make  humiliating  terms  with  the  hated 
O'Connell.  At  the  earliest  opportunity  Lord  Alvan- 
ley  interrogated  Melbourne  as  to  whether  he  had  ar- 
ranged for  "the  powerful  aid  of  O'Connell  and  his 
party,'*  and  upon  receiving  a  diplomatic  denial,  he 
congratulated  the  ministry  upon  the  absence  of  an 
alliance.  Lord  Liverpool  also  participated  in  this 
polite  whipping  of  the  Irish  leader.  During  the  epi- 
sode O'Connell  held  his  peace,  but  on  the  following 
day  he  found  an  opportunity  to  repay  the  two  peers 
with  a  vengeance  when  a  bewhiskered  member,  in 
speaking  of  the  ministry,  and  its  prompter  and  spon- 
sor, O'Connell,  said  that  he  did  "not  like  the  coun- 
tenance of  the  gentleman  opposite."  At  this  O'Connell 
rose  and  in  his  most  sarcastic  manner  said : 


"I  admire  the  good  humor  with  which  the  gallant  col- 
onel has  made  his  observations,  and  although  there  might 
be  something  very  remarkable  in  the  countenances  of 
gentlemen  on  this  side  of  the  house,  yet  I  think  the  gal- 
lant colonel's  countenance,  at  all  events,  is  as  remarkable 
as  any  upon  the  ministerial  benches.  I  will  not  abate 
him  a  single  hair  in  point  of  good  humor.  It  is  pleasant, 
Sir,  to  have  these  things  discussed  in  the  good  temper 
and  with  the  politeness  which  characterized  the  gallant 
colonel.  Elsewhere  they  may  be  treated  in  a  different 
style.  Those  considered,  by  the  resolution  of  this  house, 
as  unfit  to  hold  office,  may  presume  to  talk  of  the  Irish 
representatives  in  a  manner  highly  unbecoming  any  mem- 
ber, exceedingly  indecent ;  an  indecency  that  would  be 
insufferable  if  it  were  not  ridiculous.     There  is  not  a 


292  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

creature,  not  even  a  half  maniac  or  a  half  idioit,  that  may 
not  take  upon  himself  to  use  that  language  there  which 
he  would  know  better  than  to  make  use  of  elsewhere. 
And  the  bloated  buffoon  ought  to  learn  the  distinction 
between  independent  men  and  those  whose  votes  are  not 
worth  purchasing,  even  if  they  were  in  the  market." 

The  "half  maniac"  and  "half  idiot"  was  understood 
to  apply  to  Liverpool,  while  "bloated  buffoon"  was  ac- 
cepted as  an  accurate  description  of  Alvanley. 

Nothing  more  serious  resulted  from  the  use  of  this 
language  than  an  tmsuccessful  attempt  on  the  part  of 
Liverpool  to  have  O'Connell  expelled  from  the  Brooks 
Club.  The  spirit  in  which  the  liberator  met  the  sneers 
of  comparatively  stupid  English  statesmen  served  to 
popularize  him  with  the  English  masses,  and  about  this 
time  he  became  something  of  a  power  in  the  great 
jnanufacturing  centers.  Henceforth  we  shall  find  him 
giving  a  general  support  to  the  Melbourne  ministry, 
battling  on  every  occasion  for  Ireland,  sometimes 
voting  against  the  Whigs,  but  openly  determined  to 
give  them  an  opportunity  to  demonstrate  their  capacity 
properly  to  govern  Ireland.  During  1837  and  1838  he 
took  a  foremost  part  in  the  debates  on  the  Irish  Cor- 
poration Reform  bill,  and  assuming  such  an  authori- 
tative attitude  that  Londonderry  declared  him  "more 
dictatorial  and  impudent  than  ever,"  only  to  receive  in 
reply  a  characterization  as  "a  snivelling,  yelling  part 
of  a  pack  without  a  huntsman."  In  1838  he  was  en- 
tertained at  a  banquet  at  the  Crown  and  Anchor  Tav- 
ern in  London,  and  in  the  course  of  his  speech,  in  re- 
ferring to  the  faults  of  the  Irish  Reform  bill,  he  said 
that  in  the  house  of  commons;  Ireland  was  not  safe 
"from  the  perjury  of  English  and  Scotch  gentlemen," 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  293 

This  gave  his  enemies  another  chance  to  discredit  him 
with  the  house  and  the  matter  was  brought  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  commons.  They,  who  expected  an  apol- 
ogy, reckoned  without  their  host. 

"I  express  no  regret,"  he  said.  *'I  retract  nothing,  I 
repent  nothing.  I  do  not  desire  unnecessarily  to  use  hard 
or  offensive  language.  I  wish  I  could  find  terms  less 
objectionable  and  equally  significant,  but  I  can  not.  I 
am  bound  to  reassert  what  I  asserted." 

In  uttering  this  defiance  he  confidently  expected  to 
be  sent  to  the  tower,  but  the  Tories  were  as  cowardly 
as  they  were  offensive. 

It  was  in  the  year  of  this  incident  that  O'Connell 
announced  his  Irish  program — corporate  reform,  an 
extension  of  the  franchise,  a  due  proportion  of  repre- 
sentation, and  freedom  from  the  necessity  of  support- 
ing the  Protestant  church.  This  program  he  offered 
as  an  alternative  to  the  devotion  of  the  remainder  of 
his  life  to  the  cause  of  repeal.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that  O'Connell  looked  upon  the  Whigs  as  friends 
of  Ireland  and  believed  that  they  could  be  depended 
upon  to  right  at  least  some  of  the  Irish  wrongs.  He 
was  willing  to  wait  and  give  them  the  chance.  The 
enormous  Influence  he  wielded  with  his  own  people  was 
manifested  In  his  ability  to  persuade  them  to  join  him 
in  this  waiting  policy.  Speaking  to  the  people  of  Dub- 
lin in  1836,  he  said: 

"I  go  to  England  to  work  out  justice  to  Ireland.  If 
I  get  that  justice  do  you  consent  that  I  shall  abandon 
repeal?  I  put  that  question  to  the  people  of  Kerry,  and 
I  got  an  answer  In  the  affirmative.    I  put  the  same  ques- 


294  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

tion  at  Tuam  and  I  got  the  same  reply.  I  put  the  same 
question  at  ]\Ioate,  and  I  got  the  same  reply.  I  put  it 
also  to  the  honest  men  of  the  Queens  county,  and  they 
gave  me  the  same  answer.  I  now  put  that  question  to 
you.  I  want  you  to  strengthen  me  with  your  authority, 
that  I  may  go  and  tell  the  English  people  that  I  am  au- 
thorized to  make  that  bargain  with  them." 

With  the  people  of  Ireland  behind  him  on  this  prop- 
osition of  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  Irish  problem  he 
went  over  to  England  and  repeated  his  proposition  at 
great  meetings  at  Liverpool,  Worcester  and  Warwdck. 
At  Liverpool  he  said : 

"We  have  stood  by  you  in  your  contests,  and  we  are 
ready  to  do  so  again.  When  the  meteor  flag  of  England 
was  borne  forward  to  victory,  amidst  slaughter,  death 
and  carnage  of  thousands — when  shouts  of  triumph  have 
issued  from  British  decks — and  they  have  done  so  for  a 
thousand  years  and  will  do  so  for  a  thousand  more — 
when  they  have  been  heard  on  the  battle  plain  and 
o'er  the  vasty  deep — when  the  stream  of  British  blood 
flowed  in  fullest  tide  to  British  glory  and  British  fame, 
did  the  life  current  of  the  sons  of  Ireland  flow  less  copi- 
ously or  less  warmly  in  the  cause  than  yours — yours 
whose  dearer  rights  were  battled  for?  We  want  to  be 
your  brothers  and  stand  by  your  side.  What — are  you 
to  have  all  the  spoils  of  victory  and  we  nothing  but  the 
blows?  Forbid  it,  English  honor  and  English  interests. 
There  are  many  things  to  be  done  for  you  yet.  Your 
corporate  reform  bill  requires  to  be  amended.  Here  we 
are.  Your  franchise  requires  to  be  extended.  Here  we 
are.  Your  honest  and  industrious  classes  require  to  be 
protected  by  the  ballot ;  and  here  we  are." 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  with  Ireland  taking 
such  a  position  through  her  chief  spokesman  that  Eng- 
land would  have  been  persuaded  to  alter  her  policy 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  295 

toward  the  Irish  people,  and  have  gladly  availed  her- 
self of  the  opportunity  to  conciliate  the  subjugated 
race  and  reconcile  it  to  the  union.  It  was  the  hope  of 
O'Connell.  And  yet  even  while  he  was  offering  the 
olive  branch,  we  find  parliament  persisting  in  the  policy 
which  could  not  do  otherwise  than  reawaken  the  de- 
mand for  the  repeal  of  the  union.  An  illustration  of 
the  spirit  which  met  O'Connell's  peace  propositions 
may  be  given  in  connection  with  the  discussion  follow- 
ing the  mysterious  murder  of  the  notorious  Lord  Nor- 
bury,  who  presided  wnth  such  brutality  at  the  trial  of 
Robert  Emmet.  A  Mr.  Shaw,  representing  Dublin, 
and  a  poor  Irishman,  moved  for  a  return  on  the  out- 
rages in  Ireland.  O'Connell's  reply  was  bitter,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  house  may  be  gathered  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  interruotions : 


^'Speeches  have  been  made  by  four  gentlemen,  natives 
of  Ireland,  who,  it  would  appear,  come  here  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  vilifying  their  native  land,  and  endeavoring 
to  prove  that  it  is  the  worst  and  most  criminal  country 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  (Loud  cries  of  'oh'  from  the 
Tories.)  Yes,  to  come  here  to  calumniate  the  country 
that  gave  them  birth.  It  is  said  that  there  are  some  soils 
that  produce  enormous  and  crawling  creatures — things 
odious  and  disgusting.  (Loud  cheers  from  the  Tories.) 
Yes,  you  who  cheer — there  you  are— can  you  deny  it? 
Are  you  not  calumniators?  (Hisses.)  Oh,  you  hiss, 
but  you  can  not  sting.  I  rejoice  in  my  native  land ;  I 
rejoice  that  I  belong  to  it ;  your  slanders  can  not  dimin- 
ish my  regard  for  it;  your  malevolence  can  not  blacken 
it  in  my  estimation ;  and  though  your  vices  and  crimes 
have  driven  its  people  to  outrage  and  murder — (cries  of 
'Order*) — yes,  I  say  your  vices  and  crimes — ('Chair, 
chair').  Well  then,  the  crimes  of  men  like  you  have 
produced  these  results.    .    .    .    Fourteen  murders  have 


296  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

occurred  in  Ireland  since  the  sixteenth  of  February. 
England  since  that  period  has  presented  twenty-five ;  yet 
no  English  member  has  arisen  to  exclaim  'What  an 
abominable  country  is  mine.  What  shocking  people  are 
the  people  of  England.'  " 

Toward  the  latter  part  of  his  experiment  with  Eng- 
lish justice  the  Irish  Municipal  bill,  which  had  passed 
the  commons,  was  returned  from  the  lords  miserably 
emasculated.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  fatal 
to  the  "experiment."  In  a  burst  of  indignation  O'Con- 
nell  exclaimxcd  in  the  house : 

"Neither  the  noble  duke  nor  your  minority  shall  ever 
be  permitted  to  trample  upon  Ireland  with  impunity.  In 
the  name  of  the  Irish  people  I  give  you  this  defiance. 
Do  you  think  that  I  mock  when  I  talk  to  you?  I  tell 
you  if  you  refuse,  to  do  justice  to  us,  we  are  able  to  do 
justice  to  ourselves.  I  have  given  up  the  agitation  of  the 
question  of  the  repeal  of  the  union,  and  now  see  what 
an  argument  you  have  given  me  in  support  of  it." 

Some  time  before  the  downfall  of  the  Melbourne 
ministry  and  the  accession  of  the  Tories  to  power  un- 
der the  leadership  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  liberator 
was  convinced  that  justice  would  never  be  done  to 
Ireland  until  she  forced  the  repeal  of  the  union.  While 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  he  was  imposed  upon 
by  Whig  pretensions  so  long,  it  is  but  fair  to  assume 
that  he  clung  tenaciously  to  the  hope  that  the  party  to 
which  he  had  given  a  certain  support  would  right  the 
ancient  wrongs  of  Ireland.  Perhaps  his  personal  re- 
lationship with  some  of  the  leaders  of  the  party  may 
have  unconsciously  affected  his  judgment ;  possibly  he 
merely  hesitated  to  acknowledge  that  he  had  been  de- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL     -  297 

ceived.  The  people  of  Ireland  had  authorized  the  ex- 
periment but  they  had  long  since  tired  of  it.  The  spirit 
of  revolt  was  once  more  in  the  air.  The  demand  that 
the  liberator  lead  them  in  an  onslaught  on  the  union 
was  insistent.  That  this  demand  was  music  to  his 
ears  we  have  reasons  to  believe.  Toward  the  latter 
part  of  the  Melbourne  ministry,  in  speaking  to  the 
National  Union  at  Dublin,  he  said : 

"Oh,  let  us  for  a  moment  contemplate  the  scene  on  the 
day  when  we  shall  turn  out  the  money  changers  from 
the  beautiful  edifice,  in  which  our  parliament  sat  before, 
and  in  which  it  will  sit  again ;  that  day  when  the  streets 
will  be  crowded  with  free  Irishmen  whose  shouts  for 
liberty  will  rend  the  air;  when  every  window  will  pro- 
duce a  galaxy  of  native  loveliness;  and  when  the  noble 
and  high-spirited  youth  of  Ireland  will  stand  in  the  streets 
of  our  beautiful  city  shouting  liberty,  independence,  peace 
and  tranquillity  for  Ireland — (loud  cheers) — and  when 
the  speaker  of  the  house  of  commons  shall  again  take 
his  seat,  I  will  claim  the  privilege — perhaps  it  may  be 
vanity — of  moving  the  address — (tremendous  cheering). 
I  have  indulged  in  the  anticipation  of  this  glorious  day 
while  gazing  upon  the  vast  Atlantic.  For  I  love  the  wild 
beauties  of  nature ;  and  I  have  but  just  come  from  my 
native  mountains,  where  I  walked  abroad  amid  the  most 
magnificent  scenery  in  the  world ;  and  where  I  listened 
to  the  voice  of  nature,  as  if  speaking  to  eternity,  in  the 
mighty  waves  which  broke  innocuously  upon  the  iron- 
bound  cliffs  of  my  native  shore.  There  I  heard  the 
mountain  stream,  as  if  whispering,  in  a  still  soft  voice, 
*Now  is  the  time  to  strain  every  nerve  for  Ireland's  re- 
generation, when  her  sons  have  forgot  the  bad  passions 
which  have  so  long  kept  them  enslaved  by  setting  them 
against  each  other.'  Seven  hundred  years  have  now 
rolled  on  since  the  first  hostile  foot  of  the  Saxon  and 
the  stranger  polluted  your  lovely  soil;  but  the  time  is 
come  when  the  sons  of  Ireland,  in  peaceable  but  irre- 


298  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

sistible  strength,  bound  together  by  chains  of  love,  become 
in  their  union  too  strong  for  bondage,  and  walk  abroad 
in  the  full  enjoyment  of  liberty — (long  continued  ap- 
plause). I  want  no  triumph;  I  only  ask  that  all  Irish- 
men shall  be  bound  in  a  link  of  brotherly  love ;  and  that 
once  accomplished,  I  anticipate  a  higher  delight — when, 
in  the  words  of  the  poet,  I  can  say — 

"  *Look  through  nature,  through  the  range 
Of  planets,  suns  and  adamantine  spheres. 
Whirling  unshaken  through  the  void  immense, 
And  speak,  oh  man,  can  this  capacious  scene 
With  half  that  kindling  majesty  dilate 
My  strong  conception,  as  when  Brutus  rose 
Amidst  the  crowd  of  patriots — and  his  arm  upflung 
Like  immortal  Jove,  when  guilt  brings  down  the  thunder 
Called  on  Tully's  name  and  bade  the  father  of  his  coun- 
try, hail.' 

"I  quit  Rome  and  return  to  my  native  land;  for  lo! 
the  union's  prostrate  in  the  dust,  and  Ireland  again  is 
free." 

Thus,  after  his  fair  experiment,  the  mind  of  O'Con- 
nell  recurred  to  his  original  idea.  His  first  public  ut- 
terance had  been  in  protest  against  the  consummation 
of  the  union.  Throughout  the  long  struggle  for  Cath- 
olic emancipation  the  repeal  was  the  underlying 
thought.  It  was  with  the  idea  of  ultimate  repeal  that 
he  had  entered  parliament.  He  had  satisfied  himself 
that  if  Ireland  was  ever  again  to  stand  forth  a  free 
nation,  it  would  not  be  through  any  concessions  of  an 
English  parliament,  but  because  the  Irish  people  arose 
in  the  majesty  of  their  might  and  forced  their  rights 
from  a  reluctant  and  traditional  oppressor.  His  ten 
years  in  parliament  had  not  been  entirely  lean  years. 
He  had  accomplished  much.    But  after  all,  the  name 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  299 

O'Connell  is  not  popularly  associated  with  his  parlia- 
mentary career.  His  place  was  out  among  the  people, 
under  the  canopy  of  the  heavens,  arousing  them  with 
his  splendid  eloquence,  and  leading  them  on,  in  peace- 
ful revolution,  to  the  righting  of  their  wrongs.  He 
had  played  fair  with  England — and  England  had  not 
played  fair  with  him.  He  had  given  her  the  chance  to 
put  down  the  agitation  for  the  repeal  of  the  union  by 
simply  doing  justice — and  she  had  spurned  the  chance. 
Once  more  the  liberator  heard  the  call  of  his  people — 
once  more  responded.  And  we  shall  now  behold  him 
— swaying  a  nation  in  the  succession  of  marvelous 
meetings  that  surpass  anything  the  world  has  ever 
known. 


vn 


On  April  fifteenth,  1840,  a  few  gentlemen  met  at 
the  Corn  Exchange  in  Dublin  and  founded  the  Re- 
peal Association.  The  hour  set  for  the  meeting  ar- 
rived and  scarcely  a  handful  of  men  were  present. 
There  was  a  wait  of  an  hour — and  but  few  more  put 
in  an  appearance.  The  beginning  of  the  most  spectac- 
ular movement  in  the  history  of  Ireland  was  inauspi- 
cious. The  failure  of  the  people  to  take  fire  in  the 
beginning  was  born  of  the  conviction  of  the  younger 
element  that  bullets  rather  than  ballots  would  be  nec- 
essary. Only  the  magnetic,  over-powering  personality 
of  O'Connell  could  have  prevailed  over  the  sense  of 
hopelessness  with  which  the  masses  had  begun  to  look 
upon  constitutional  agitation.  But  O'Connell  pre- 
vailed. 

In  the  autumn  of  1840  he  began  the  series  of  m.on- 


300  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

ster  meetings  that  were  to  convert  the  island  into  a 
seething  mass  of  revolutionary  men.  Almost  from  the 
beginning  the  people  were  aflame.  The  entire  popula- 
tion was  on  the  march.  The  nation  was  moving,  amid 
the  waving  of  banners,  the  burning  of  incense,  the 
martial  music  of  bands,  the  procession  of  pageants, 
toward  its  coronation.  In  the  beginning  the  English 
press  tried  to  dismiss  the  new  movement  with  a  smile. 
The  London  Examiner  compared  it  to  the  cry  of  the 
Darrynane  beagles.  The  reply  of  O'Connell  struck  a 
popular  chord — "Yes,  but  he  made  a  better  hit  than  he 
intended,  for  my  beagles  never  cry  until  they  catch 
their  game." 

The  first  of  the  spectacular  meetings  was  held  at 
Cork.  On  his  way  the  carriage  of  the  liberator  was 
met  by  thousands  of  wildly  excited  and  jubilant  men 
of  the  red-blood  type  who  attempted  to  take  the  horses 
from  the  carriage  and  draw  him  into  the  city.  **No, 
no,''  cried  O'Connell,  *1  will  never  let  you  men  do  the 
business  of  horses  if  I  can  help  it.  Don't  touch  that 
harness,  you  vagabonds.  I  am  trying  to  elevate  your 
position,  and  I  will  not  permit  you  to  degrade  your- 
selves." A  hearty  laugh  from  the  crowd — and  the 
carriage  drove  on  surrounded  by  the  cheering  thou- 
sands. The  meeting  was  held  at  Batty's  circus.  The 
enthusiasm  was  tremendous.  The  movement  gained 
in  velocity. 

The  agitator  proceeded  to  Limerick.  Here  he  was 
met  with  another  army  one  hundred  thousand  strong 
— red-blooded  men.  The  working  classes  took  upon 
themselves  the  arrangements.  The  ship  carpenters  got 
up  a  picturesque  pageant.  They  arranged  a  boat,  on 
wheels,  and,  within  the  boat  sat  Neptune  with  his 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  301 

trident,  arrayed  in  a  sea  green  costume.  On  the  ap- 
proach of  the  hberator  Neptune  rose,  and  amid  the 
acclamations  of  the  seething  multitude  delivered  an  ad- 
dress to  which  O'Connell  smilingly  replied  that  he  ''felt 
refreshed  by  receiving  an  aquatic  compliment  on  the 
dusty  highroad."  The  procession  moved  on — all  Lim- 
erick, men,  women  and  children,  moved  on — to 
Cruise's  hotel,  where  O'Connell  delivered  a  stirring 
speech.  His  speeches  during  this  period  were  calcu- 
lated to  appeal  to  the  patriotic  pride  and  sentiment  of 
the  people — eulogies  of  the  land  of  their  fathers, 
tributes  to  its  beauty  of  hill  and  vale  and  stream,  com- 
ments upon  the  contrast  between  the  fertility  of  its 
soil  and  the  distress  of  its  people,  and  all  the  evils  of 
the  country  were  traced  in  bold  defiant  language  to 
English  rule.  He  reached  their  hearts  with  Moore's 
melodies.  He  aroused  their  passions  with  the  violated 
treaty  of  Limerick.  He  touched  their  pride  with  pic- 
tures of  Grattan's  parliament.  After  the  meeting  at 
the  hotel,  O'Connell  and  his  party  proceeded  gravely 
to  the  treaty  stone  where  speeches  were  made.  This 
was  holding  up  to  the  maddened  throng  the  garments 
of  Caesar  pierced  with  the  daggers  of  traitors.  --^' 

The  first  monster  meeting  excited  the  emulation  of 
other  cities.  The  orator  passed  on  to  Ennis,  where 
he  addressed  fifty  thousand  men ;  and  a  little  later  on  to 
Kilkenny,  where  two  hundred  thousand  people  greeted 
him  as  a  conqueror — as  a  liberator.  Here  there  was 
a  suggestion  of  the  possibilities  of  the  agitation  when 
twenty  thousand  men  on  horseback,  the  Repeal  Cav- 
alry, rode  through  the  streets,  and  stood  sentinel  while 
O'Connell  spoke.  Here  O'Connell  made  his  appeal  to 
the  religious  character  of  the  masses : 


302  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

"Your  priesthood  were  hunted  and  put  to  death,"  he 
said,  "yet  your  hierarchy  has  remained  unbroken — a  no- 
ble monument  of  your  faith  and  piety.  The  traveler  who 
wanders  over  eastern  deserts  beholds  the  majestic  tem- 
ples of  Baalbec  or  Palmyra,  which  rear  their  proud  col- 
umns to  the  heavens  in  the  midst  of  solitude  and  desola- 
tion. Such  is  the  church  in  Ireland.  In  the  midst  of 
our  political  desolation,  a  sacred  Palmyra  has  ever  re- 
mained to  us." 

Thus  he  hurried  from  one  triumph  to  another,  a 
trail  of  flame,  creating  a  conflagration  everywhere — 
driving  the  timid  to  cover,  calling  the  brave  to  battle. 
Speaking  to  hundreds  of  thousands  by  word  of  mouth 
he  reached  the  millions  through  the  press  through  his 
traveling  companions,  Doctor  Gray,  of  The  Freeman's 
Journal,  and  Richard  Barret,  of  The  Pilot. 

And  all  the  while  he  held  these  millions  in  the  hol- 
low of  his  hand.  They  were  not  marshaled  in  col- 
umns, but  they  were  no  mob.  He  constituted  every 
Irishman  a  committee  of  one  to  keep  the  peace.  When 
some  disturbances  occurred  at  Limerick,  he  hastily 
despatched  a  messenger  to  that  city,  bearing  a  white 
flag  edged  with  green  upon  which  was  inscribed,  "Who- 
ever commits  a  crime  adds  strength  to  the  enemy.'*  He 
reiterated  this  message  a  thousand  times.  The  crusade 
of  Father  Matthew  made  it  possible  to  assemble  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  without  incurring  the  slightest  risk 
of  danger. 

In  the  early  part  of  1841  the  enemies  of  Ireland  be- 
gan to  move.  Their  plan  contemplated  the  assassina- 
tion of  the  liberator.  It  was  intended  to  murder  him 
on  the  way  to  Belfast.  He  was  notified  of  his  dan- 
ger. He  ordered  post  horses  all  along  the  road  from 
Dublin  for  one  day  under  his  own,  and  two  days  ear- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  303 

lier  he  ordered  horses  under  an  assumed  name.  He 
went  two  days  earlier  and  escaped  the  murderer's  steel. 
Arriving  at  Belfast  he  was  given  a  soiree  by  five  hun- 
dred ladies.  The  gallant  enemy  stoned  the  building, 
breaking  the  windows,  smashing  the  chandeliers  and 
injuring  one  woman.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  the 
enemies  of  Ireland  had  made  war  on  women  and  chil- 
dren. 

On  another  occasion  it  was  planned  to  meet  O'Con- 
nell's  constitutional  agitation  with  assassination.  It 
was  intended  to  meet  him  on  the  road,  to  surround  his 
carriage  and  shoot  him.  Leaving  the  carriage  he 
crossed  the  fields  and  escaped. 

Unable  to  assassinate  with  bullet  or  steel,  England 
made  an  attempt  upon  his  reputation.  The  people  of 
Ireland  were  again  contributing  to  the  success  of  the 
movement  through  the  payment  of  rent  to  O'Connell, 
and  he  was  accused  of  playing  upon  the  patriotism  of 
the  people  for  mercenary  motives.  The  attack  was 
venomous  but  it  disgusted  even  the  decent  people  of 
England.  Lord  Greville,  in  his  Memoirs,  in  referring 
to  these  attacks,  has  said :  "His  dependence  on  his 
country's  bounty  in  the  rent  that  was  levied  for  so 
many  years  was  alike  honorable  to  the  contributors  and 
the  recipient.  It  was  an  income  nobly  given  and  nobly 
earned." 

These  brutal  attacks  upon  his  life  and  reputation 
only  steeled  the  arm  of  the  liberator.  He  began  to 
verge  on  the  seditious  with  his  defiance.  At  one  of 
the  great  meetings  he  said : 

"We  are  eight  millions — there  is  another  million  of 
Irishmen  in  England ;  there  are  Irishmen  not  forgetful 
of  their  country  in  the  English  army.    We  shall  make 


304  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

no  rebellion,  we  wish  no  civil  war,  we  shall  keep  on  the 
ground  of  the  constitution  so  long  as  we  are  allowed  to  do 
so ;  but  if  Peel  forces  on  a  contest,  if  he  invades  the  con- 
stitutional rights  of  the  Irish  people — then  V(B  victis  be- 
tween the  contending  parties.  Where  is  the  coward  who 
would  not  die  for  such  a  land  as  Ireland?  Have  not 
Irishmen  the  ordinary  courage  of  Englishmen  ?  Are  they 
to  be  treated  as  slaves  ?  Will  they  submit  to  being  tram- 
pled under  foot?  They  shall  never  trample  me  under 
their  feet ;  if  they  do  so  it  shall  be  my  dead  body." 

Learning  of  this  tone  in  the  liberator's  speeches,  the 
press  of  England  began  to  hint  of  armed  forces  being 
despatched  to  Ireland,  in  articles  intimating  that  the 
power  of  steam  had  put  Ireland  within  the  grasp  of 
England.    At  the  first  opportunity  O'Connell  replied : 

"They  threaten  us  with  troops  by  steam.  They  say 
that  a  few  hours  will  land  an  army  here.  Steam  is  a 
powerful  foe — but  steam  is  an  equally  powerful  friend. 
Whisper  it  in  your  ear,  John  Bull,  steam  has  brought 
America  within  ten  days'  sail  of  Ireland." 

Once  more — America! 

The  movement  gained  an  impetus  during  the  year 
1842  and  O'Connell  announced  that  1843  would  be  the 
banner  year.  The  association  was  then  formed  into 
three  sections — the  members,  the  associates  and  the 
Volunteers.  The  card  issued  to  the  Volunteers  was 
designed  by  O'Callaghan,  of  The  Green  Book.  It  was 
a  challenge.  It  was  as  w^ine  to  the  people  of  Ireland 
— a  red  flag  to  John  Bull.  It  contained  the  names  of 
the  four  great  battles  in  which  the  Irish  defeated  the 
Danes.  This  was  calculated  to  arouse  the  martial 
pride  of  a  martial  race.     It  was  designed  with  two 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  305 

columns.     On  the  shaft  of  one  were  the  significant 
words : 

"Ireland  contains  thirty-two  thousand  two  hundred  and 
one  geographical  square  miles.  It  is  larger  than  Portugal 
by  four  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-nine  miles  ;  larger 
than  Bavaria  and  Saxony  by  four  thousand  four  hundred 
and  seventy-three  miles ;  larger  than  Naples  and  Sicily  by 
four  hundred  and  nine  miles;  larger  than  Hanover,  the 
Papal  States  and  Tuscany  by  one  thousand  two  hundred 
and  eighty-five  miles ;  larger  than  Denmark,  Hesse, 
Darmstadt  and  the  Electorate  of  the  Hess  by  nine  thou- 
sand six  hundred  and  nine  miles ;  larger  than  Greece 
and  Switzerland  by  five  thousand  five  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  miles ;  larger  than  Holland  and  Belgium  by  thirteen 
thousand  and  sixty-five  miles ;  it  is  in  population  superior 
to  eighteen,  and  in  extent  of  territory  superior  to  fifteen 
European  states — and  has  not  a  parliament." 

On  another  column  was  the  inscription : 

"Ireland  has  eight  million  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants ;  has  a  yearly  income  of  five  million 
pounds ;  exports  nearly  eighteen  million  pounds'  worth  of 
produce;  sends  yearly  (after  paying  government  ex- 
penses) to  England  two  million  five  hundred  thousand 
pounds ;  remits  yearly  to  absentees  five  million  pounds ; 
supplied  during  the  last  great  war  against  France  the 
general,  two-thirds  of  the  men  and  officers  of  the  Eng- 
lish army  and  navy ;  and  has  a  military  population  of  two 
million — and  has  not  a  parliament." 

England  finally  became  alarmed.  All  Ireland  was 
"up."  The  millions  were  on  the  march.  O'Connell 
was  speaking  to  audiences  of  hundreds  of  thousands  at 
a  time.  The  opposition  to  the  ministry  in  the  English 
parliament  interrogated  Sir  Robert  Peel  as  to  whether 


306  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

he  proposed  to  suppress  the  movement.  The  prime 
minister  replied  that  he  would  if  he  could.  There  had 
been  no  lawlessness;  no  drunkenness  at  the  monster 
meetings ;  no  sedition;  no  injuries — but  the  prime  min- 
ister would  suppress  a  constitutional  agitation  if  he 
could!  The  impudence  of  the  reply  aroused  the  fight- 
ing blood  of  O'Connell,  and  he  tauntingly  replied  in  a 
public  speech: 

"We  are  told  that  some  desperate  measures  are  to  be 
taken  for  the  suppression  of  public  opinion  upon  the 
question  of  repeal.  I  will  tell  Peel  where  he  may  find 
a  suggestion  for  his  bill.  In  the  American  Congress  for 
the  District  of  Columbia  they  have  passed  a  law  that  the 
house  shall  not  receive  any  petitions  from,  nor  any  pe- 
titions on  behalf  of,  slaves,  even  though  the  petitioners 
be  freemen.  I  shall  send  for  a  copy  of  that  act  of  the 
Columbian  legislature  and  send  it  to  Peel,  that  he  may 
take  it  as  his  model  when  he  is  framing  his  bill  for  the 
coercion  of  the  Irish  people.  He  shall  go  the  full  length 
of  the  Coercion  bill  if  he  stirs  at  all." 

And  the  monster  meetings  became  more  frequent 
and  more  immense.  About  this  time  occurred  the  mar- 
velous meeting  at  Tara — the  seat  of  the  ancient  kings. 
There  was  something  inspiring  in  the  scene.  It  was  a 
hot  August  day.  Although  fifty  miles  from  Dublin, 
it  has  been  estimated  that  one  thousand  four  hundred 
vehicles  went  out  from  Dublin  alone.  The  roads 
leading  to  Tara  were  crowded.  It  was  one  Sunday, 
a  holiday  for  the  church,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
marching  nation — for  it  was  a  marching  nation — was 
intense.  Not  a  drunken  man  was  seen  among  the 
thousands.  Not  a  quarrel  took  place.  Not  a  fight 
marred  the  solem^nity  of  the  occasion.     Men,  women 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  307 

and  children  marched,  drove  and  rode  m  perfect  safety 
on  the  way  to  the  crowning  of  King  Dan.  Bands 
played  patriotic  airs.  Temporary  altars  were  built 
along  the  road  at  frequent  intervals  v/here  masses 
were  celebrated.  The  odor  of  incense  mingled  with 
the  odor  of  the  trees.  Now  and  then  a  sermon  was 
preached  on  temperance.  Father  Matthew  was  march- 
ing hand  in  hand  with  the  Hberator.  The  dignitaries 
of  the  church  were  in  attendance. 

When  he  ascended  the  platform,  O'Connell  looked 
out  over  a  wondrous  sea  of  humanity — stretching  all 
around  him,  and  back,  far  back,  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  human  voice,  to  where  features  were  blurred  by 
the  distance.  Over  a  million  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren stood  at  Tara  on  that  memorable  day.  The  Lcw- 
don  Times  placed  the  number  at  a  million — and  the 
Times  didn't  exaggerate  in  favor  of  the  Irish.  The 
scene  was  witnessed  by  one  who  had  the  capacity  to 
transfer  it  to  a  canvas  that  can  not  fade.  Bulwer's 
(description  is  the  best  that  has  come  down  to  us : 


"Once  to  my  sight  the  giant  thus  was  given, 

Walled  by  wide  air,  and  roofed  by  boundless  heaven : 

Beneath  his  feet  the  human  ocean  lay, 

And  wave  on  wave  flowed  into  space  away. 

Methought  no  clarion  could  have  sent  its  sound 

E'en  to  the  center  of  the  hosts  around ; 

And,  as  I  thought,  rose  the  sonorous  swell, 

As  from  some  church  spire  swings  the  silvery  bell ; 

Aloft  and  clear  from  airy  tide  to  tide 

It  glided  easy  as  a  bird  may  glide. 

To  the  last  verge  of  that  vast  audience  sent, 

It  played  with  each  wild  passion  as  it  went : 

Now  stirred  the  uproar — now  the  murmur  stilled. 

And  sobs  or  laughter  answered  as  it  willed. 


308  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

Then  did  I  know  what  swells  of  infinite  choice 
To  rouse  or  lull  was  the  sweet  human  voice. 
Then  did  I  learn  to  seize  the  sudden  clue 
To  the  grand  troublous  life  antique — to  view 
Under  the  rock-stand  of  Demosthenes 
Mutable  Athens  heave  her  noisy  seas." 

On  the  outskirts  of  the  multitude  where  the  voice 
of  the  orator  could  scarcely  be  heard,  his  gestures  were 
understood,  and  the  people  who  could  not  hear  stood 
still  in  perfect  silence — awed  by  the  mere  sight  of  the 
speaker. 

A  little  later  occurred  the  monster  meeting  at  Mul- 
laghmast,  where  four  hundred  thousand  people  assem- 
bled. It  was  here  that  Hogan,  the  sculptor,  crowned 
the  liberator  while  the  thousands  shouted  themselves 
hoarse.  There  was  no  mistaking  O'Connell's  meaning 
on  this  occasion : 

"At  Mullaghmast,"  he  said,  "we  are  on  the  precise 
spot  where  English  treachery  —  aye,  and  false  Irish 
treachery,  too — consumm.ated  a  massacre  that  has  never 
been  imitated  save  in  the  massacre  of  the  Mamelukes 
by  Mahomet  Ali.  It  was  necessary  to  have  Turks 
atrocious  enough  to  commit  a  crime  equal  to  that  per- 
petrated by  Englishmen.  But  do  not  think  that  the  mas- 
sacre at  Mullaghmast  was  a  question  between  Protestants 
and  Catholics — it  was  no  such  thing.  The  murdered  per- 
sons were,  to  be  sure,  Catholics,  but  a  great  number  of 
the  murderers  were  also  Catholics,  and  Irishmen,  because 
there  were  then,  as  well  as  now,  many  Catholics  who 
were  traitors  to  Ireland.  But  we  have  now  this  advan- 
tage— that  we  have  many  honest  Protestants  joining  us 
— joining  us  heartily  in  hand  and  heart,  for  old  Ireland 
and  liberty.  I  thought  this  a  fit  and  becoming  spot  to 
celebrate,  in  the  open  day,  our  unanimity  in  declaring  our 
determination  not  to  be  misled  by  any  treachery — there 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  309 

shall  be  no  bargain,  no  compromise  with  England — we 
shall  take  nothing  but  repeal,  and  a  parliament  in  College 
Green.  You  will  never  by  my  advice  confide  in  any 
false  hopes  they  hold  out  to  you ;  never  confide  in  any- 
thing coming  from  them,  or  cease  from  your  struggle, 
no  matter  what  promise  may  be  held  out  to  you,  until 
you  hear  me  say  I  am  satisfied ;  and  I  will  tell  you  where 
I  will  say  that — near  the  statue  of  King  William  in  Col- 
lege Green.  No,  we  came  here  to  express  our  determina- 
tion to  die  to  a  man,  if  necessary,  in  the  cause  of  old 
Ireland.  We  came  to  take  advice  of  each  other,  and 
above  all  I  believe  you  came  here  to  take  my  advice.  I 
can  tell  you  I  have  the  game  in  my  hand — I  have  triumph 
secure — I  have  repeal  certain,  if  you  but  obey  my  advice." 

The  multitude  cheered  wildly  at  this  promise  of  vic- 
tory. The  orator  surveyed  the  hundreds  of  thousands, 
and  then  cautioned  them  to  permit  him  to  move  slowly. 
He  never  in  any  of  his  speeches  lost  sight  of  the  danger 
of  precipitate  action.  Nor  did  he  forget  to  play  to 
the  pride  of  the  people.  His  tribute  to  the  men  of  Kil- 
dare  was  similar  to  the  tribute  he  had  for  every  com- 
munity : 

"Oh,  how  delighted  I  was  in  the  scenes  that  I  witnessed 
as  I  came  along  here  to-day.  How  my  heart  throbbed, 
how  my  spirit  was  elevated,  how  my  bosom  swelled  with 
delight  at  the  multitude  which  I  beheld,  and  which  I  shall 
behold,  in  the  stalwart  and  strong  men  of  Kildare.  I 
was  delighted  at  the  activity  and  force  that  I  saw  around 
me,  and  my  old  heart  grew  warm  again  in  admiring  the 
beauty  of  the  dark-eyed  maids  and  matrons  of  Kildare. 
Oh,  there  is  a  starlight  sparkling  from  the  eye  of  a  Kil- 
dare beauty  that  is  scarcely  equaled,  that  could  not  be 
excelled,  all  over  the  world.  And  remember  that  you 
are  the  sons,  the  fathers,  the  brothers  and  the  husbands 
of  such  women,  and  a  traitor  and  a  coward  could  never 
be  connected  with  any  of  them.    Yes,  I  am  in  a  county 


310  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

remarkable  in  the  history  of  Ireland  for  its  bravery  and 
its  misfortune,  for  its  credulity  in  the  faith  of  others, 
for  its  people  judged  of  the  Saxon  by  the  honesty  and 
honor  of  their  own  natures.  I  am  in  a  county  celebrated 
for  the  sacredness  of  its  shrines  and  fanes.  I  am  in  a 
county  where  the  lamp  of  Kildare's  holy  shrine  burned 
with  its  sacred  fire,  through  ages  of  darkness  and  storm 
— ^that  fire  which  for  six  centuries  burned  before  the  high 
altar  without  being  extinguished,  being  fed  continuously, 
without  the  slightest  interruption,  and  it  seemed  to  me 
to  have  been  not  an  inapt  representation  of  the  continu- 
ous fidelity  and  religious  love  of  country  of  the  men  of 
Kildare." 

That  O'Connell  confidently  expected  success  is  cer- 
tain from  the  fact  that  during  the  summer  of  1843  he 
was  actually  planning  the  parliament  for  College 
Green.  At  this  time  the  world  was  ringing  with  his 
name.  His  popularity  was  at  high  tide.  He  actually 
refused  his  autograph  to  the  czar  of  Russia  because  of 
his  despotism,  and  the  king  of  Bavaria  accepted  it  as 
a  favor.  In  Ireland  he  was  passionately  loved.  Then 
came  the  blow  from  Peel. 

The  liberator  had  planned  a  monster  meeting  at 
Clontarf,  near  Dublin,  for  October  eighth,  1843.  The 
date  fell  on  Sunday,  and  another  Tara  meeting  seemed 
assured.  The  week  before  the  proposed  meeting  there 
were  some  disconcerting  rumors  to  the  effect  that  the 
meeting  would  be  proscribed.  O'Connell  refused  to 
credit  them.  Then  came  the  confirmation  of  the  re- 
port— less  than  twenty- four  hours  before  the  meeting. 
There  was  something  infamous,  something  murderous 
in  the  methods  of  Peel  in  this  instance.  An  army  of 
men  thrown  without  warning  into  the  midst  of  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men,  women  and  children,  as- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  311 

sembled  in  a  lawful  manner  for  a  lawful  purpose! 
O'Connell  did  not  propose  to  call  his  people  together 
to  have  them  slaughtered.  He  sent  messengers  on  the 
fleetest  horses  that  could  be  procured  in  all  directions 
to  warn  the  people.  He  succeeded.  When  Sunday 
morning  dawned  all  was  quiet.  The  people  had  not 
been  gathered  in  to  be  murdered.  U  such  was  Peel's 
intention  he  had  been  foiled.  If  it  was  not  his  pur- 
pose his  actions  were  so  suggestive  of  it  that  his  friends 
have  never  been  able  to  explain  his  delay  in  announc- 
ing the  proscription,  and  his  enemies  in  the  house  of 
commons  denounced  him  for  it. 

But  the  government  w^as  not  satisfied.  A  few  days 
later  Daniel  O'Connell  was  indicted  and  arrested  on  a 
charge  of  conspiracy.  He  was  prepared  for  the  worst. 
He  told  his  son  that  if  he  should  be  arraigned  for 
treason  he  would  make  his  confession  and  prepare  for 
death.  After  giving  bail,  his  first  thought  was  of  his 
people.  To  them  he  issued  an  address  urging  them  to 
be  patient  and  peaceful.  He  then  retired  to  Darry- 
nane  to  await  his  trial — a  trial  which  we  shall  see  was 
the  same  sickening  mockery  w^hich  had  always  marked 
the  trials  of  Irish  patriots. 

VIII 

Lingering  in  his  mountain  home  by  the  sea  until  the 
time  set  for  the  trial,  O'Connell  went  back  to  Dublin, 
where  the  people  rallied  about  him  as  a  conqueror.  He 
went  to  court  in  the  coach  of  the  lord  mayor,  followed 
by  a  procession  of  aldermen,  all  repealers,  all  wearing 
the  garb  of  repealers.  The  trial  itself  was  a  farce. 
The  speech  of  Sheil  in  defense  was  the  one  brilliant 


312  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

feature,  and  it  only  served  to  illuminate  the  surround- 
ing darkness  and  expose  the  baseness  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  jury  was  carefully  packed,  not  one  Cath- 
olic being  on  it,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the 
community  was  overwhelmingly  Catholic.  Lecky,  who 
tries  to  be  fair  in  treating  of  Irish  subjects,  but  not 
always  with  success,  is  very  delicious  when  he  says, 
"An  error,  which  at  least  one  English  judge  believed 
not  to  have  been  unintentional,  was  made  in  the  panel 
of  the  jury,  and  by  this  error  more  than  twenty  Cath- 
olics were  excluded  from  the  juror  list."  This  was, 
of  course,  "an  error,"  but  a  very  ordinary  one  in  those 
enlightened  days.  Quite  naturally  O'Connell  was  con- 
victed. 

The  verdict  created  a  sensation  throughout  the 
world.  It  was  difficult  for  some  nations  to  under- 
stand. When  immediately  afterward  O'Connell  went 
to  London  and  appeared  in  the  house  of  commons  he 
was  greeted  with  wild  applause  on  the  liberal  side. 
This  did  not  deceive  him.  ?Ie  knew  that  the  applause 
was  mostly  antagonistic  to  Sir  Robert  Peel — that  most 
of  the  applauding  members  were  inwardly  delighted 
at  the  humiliation  of  an  Irishman.  There  were  some 
members  of  the  parliament,  however,  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell among  them,  who  could  not  but  contemplate  with 
feelings  of  revulsion  the  shameless  travesty  of  justice. 

When,  the  latter  part  of  May,  judgment  was  pro- 
nounced, Daniel  O'Connell  was  sentenced  to  one  year 
in  prison.  He  merely  imparted  respectability  to  a 
prison.  When  he  went  to  Richmond  Bridewell,  which 
he  had  selected,  to  begin  the  serving  of  his  sentence,  the 
government  gave  him  an  escort  of  mounted  police,  and 
behind  the  police,  in  deathlike  silence,  marched  thou- 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  313 

sands  of  sympathizers  and  patriots.  At  the  gate  of 
the  prison  the  multitude  gave  a  lusty  cheer  for  the 
"criminal." 

His  life  in  prison  was  made  as  comfortable  as  pos- 
sible. He  had  pleasant  quarters,  the  companionship 
of  other  political  "criminals"  with  whom  he  was  per- 
mitted to  dine,  and  was  given  every  possible  liberty 
by  the  keeper  of  the  prison  who  naturally  felt  ashamed 
of  his  job.  Here  he  issued  a  letter  to  the  people  of 
Ireland  begging  them  to  maintain  the  peace,  and  hither 
came  addresses  from  lovers  of  liberty  and  enemies  of 
despotism  all  over  the  world. 

When,  at  length,  the  house  of  lords  reversed  the  ac- 
tion of  the  court  and  ordered  his  liberation,  the  people 
of  Dublin  determined  to  have  a  triumphal  procession 
from  the  prison  to  O'Connell's  house.  The  scene  was 
marvelous.  Thousands  lined  the  way.  All  the  trades 
were  out  with  bands  and  banners.  There  were  not 
enough  equipages  in  Dublin  to  meet  the  demand  and 
others  were  sent  from  distant  places.  The  lord  mayor 
and  others  marched  in  their  robes  of  office  to  do  honor 
to  the  man  who  was  a  "criminal"  to  England,  a  hero 
to  all  the  world  beside.  No  policeman  was  in  sight. 
None  was  needed.  The  idolators  of  this  desperate 
culprit  voluntarily  kept  the  peace.  Riding  through  the 
streets  in  an  imposing  car,  when  the  old  parliament 
house  was  reached,  O'Connell  ordered  the  procession 
to  pause.  Without  a  word  he  pointed  to  the  deserted 
parliament  house.  It  was  one  of  his  most  eloquent 
moments. 

But  his  work  was  over.  Broken  in  health  and  spirit, 
the  O'Connell  who  went  into  the  Richmond  Bridewell 
yv2LS  not  the  O'Connell  who  emerged.     England  had 


314  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

broken  the  back  of  constitutional  agitation,  and  a  more 
militant  spirit  was  abroad  in  the  land.  The  fight  with 
the  leaders  of  Young  Ireland,  which  belongs  to  the 
sketch  of  Meagher,  was  pathetic.  It  broke  the  liber- 
ator's heart. 

And  then  the  terrible  famine  came  upon  the  land. 
The  people  were  unable  to  help  themselves,  and  Eng- 
land appeared  indifferent.  While  England  w^as  debat- 
ing, America  w^as  sending  food.  It  was  during  this 
period  that  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  said  that  condi- 
tions were  not  so  bad  in  Ireland.  "I  understand,"  he 
said,  "that  rotten  potatoes  and  seaweed,  or  even  grass, 
properly  mixed,  afford  a  very  wholesome  and  nutri- 
tious food.  We  all  know  that  Irishmen  can  live  upon 
anything,  and  there  is  plenty  of  grass  in  the  fields  even 
if  the  potato  crop  should  fail."  This  was  the  language 
of  a  Christian  prince.  Referring  to  this  brutal  com- 
ment, O'Connell  in  his  last  speech  in  Ireland  said : 

"There  is  the  son  of  a  king — the  brother  of  a  king — 
the  uncle  of  a  monarch — there  is  his  description  of  Ire- 
land for  you.  Oh,  why  does  he  think  thus  of  the  Irish 
people?  Perhaps  he  has  been  reading  Spencer,  who 
wrote  at  a  time  when  Ireland  was  not  put  down  by  the 
strong  arm  of  force  or  defeated  in  battle — because  she 
never  was  defeated — but  when  the  plan  was  laid  down 
to  starve  the  Irish  nation.  For  three  years  every  portion 
of  the  crop  was  trampled  down  by  the  horses  of  mounted 
soldiery;  for  three  years  the  crops  were  destroyed,  and 
human  creatures  were  found  lying  behind  ditches,  with 
their  mouths  green  from  eating  sorrel  and  the  grass  of 
the  field.  The  Duke  of  Cambridge,  I  suppose,  wishes 
that  we  should  have  such  scenes  again  enacted  in  this 
country.  And  it  is  possible  that  in  the  presence  of  some 
of  the  illustrious  nobility  of  England  a  royal  personage 
could  be  found  to  utter  horrors  of  this  description?    I 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL  315 

will  go  over  to  England  and  see  what  they  intend  to  do 
for  the  Irish — whether  they  are  of  opinion  that  the  Irish 
are  to  feed  on  grass  or  eat  mangrel-wurzel.  If  that 
should  be  attempted — and  may  God  avert  the  possibility 
of  the  occurrence — I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  it  would  be 
the  duty  of  every  man  to  die  with  arms  in  his  hand." 

And  to  England  O'Connell  went — the  mere  shadow 
of  his  former  self.  Disraeli  has  left  us  a  picture  of 
his  last  appearance  in  the  house  of  commons  w^here  he 
tried  to  soften  the  English  heart  in  the  presence  of  the 
cruel  calamity  that  had  befallen  his  people.  Old,  fee- 
ble, broken-hearted,  his  w^ords  were  scarcely  audible. 
He  was  heard  in  a  sort  of  reverential  silence.  Even 
his  old  political  enemies  were  kind  and  considerate,  and 
the  queen  sent  to  inquire  after  his  health.  But  his 
mission  Avas  a  failure. 

Ordered  by  his  physicians  to  a  warmer  climate,  he 
set  out  for  Rome.  Passing  through  France  he  was 
received  with  every  mark  of  respect,  the  people  con- 
gregating in  front  of  his  hotels.  He  gave  no  heed. 
He  no  longer  cared  for  worldly  honors.  When  he 
reached  Genoa,  he  was  compelled  to  stop.  Addresses 
poured  in  upon  him  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  but  he 
did  not  read  them.  The  public  services  that  were  held 
in  all  the  churches  of  Lyons  in  France  to  pray  for  his 
recovery,  touched  him.  But  the  end  had  come,  and  on 
March  fifteenth,  1847,  Daniel  O'Connell  passed  from 
the  scene  of  his  triumphs.  His  heart,  which  he  be- 
queathed to  Rome,  was  deposited  in  an  urn,  and  pre- 
sented to  Saint  Peter's.  The  funereal  obsequies  in 
Rome  w^ere  marvelously  impressive — all  pomp  and 
magnificence,  befitting  a  king  among  men.  When  his 
body  reached  Dublin  in  August  it  was  received  with 


316  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

royal  honors ;  and  his  grave  is  in  the  famous  cemetery 
of  Glasvenin,  in  Dublin.    It  is  a  shrine. 


IX 


The  Daniel  O'Connell  of  Darrynane  would  have 
deHghted  Sir  Walter  Scott.  At  his  beautiful  home  in 
the  mountains  and  by  the  sea  almost  inaccessible  by 
ordinary  travel  for  many  years,  he  lived  like  a  me- 
dieval chief  of  a  clan.  Darrynane  House,  on  the  wild 
and  rocky  coast  of  Kerry,  was  in  the  midst  of  scenery 
that  appealed  to  the  expansive  nature  of  the  orator. 
He  could  look  out,  summer  and  winter,  on  the  great 
waves  of  the  sea  that  broke  on  the  rock-bound  coast. 
On  the  west  and  north  of  the  house  rugged  mountains 
reared  their  crests  two  thousand  feet,  in  the  air,  while 
the  east  view  was  bounded  by  a  chain  of  rocks  that 
divide  the  bay  of  Darrynane  from  that  of  Kenmare. 
Close  to  the  house  was  a  twelve-acre  tract,  rocky  and 
irregular,  with  charming  paths  winding  through  the 
irregularities.  In  the  midst  of  this  shrubbery-covered 
space  was  a  little  circular  turret  crowning  an  ivied 
rock  where  the  liberator  loved  to  withdraw  for  medi- 
tation. The  house  itself,  having  been  added  to  from 
generation  to  generation  to  meet  practical  require- 
ments, had  no  special  architectural  plan.  The  place 
was  remote,  and  until  1837,  when  a  new  road  was  built 
from  Cahirciveen,  men  were  employed  to  drag  car- 
riages with  ropes  along  five  miles  of  road  that  was 
too  precipitous  for  any  other  method  of  travel. 

Throughout  his  life  O'Connell  dispensed  a  lordly 
hospitality.  The  table  was  always  laid  for  thirty 
guests  and  no  one,  no  matter  what  his  political  creed, 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  317. 

religious  belief  or  circumstance,  was  ever  turned  away. 
One  Protestant  minister,  writing  in  the  Dublin  Chris^ 
tian  Journal,  has  left  a  record  of  his  impressions  of 
Darrynane  and  its  master  in  which  he  enthusiastically 
praises  O'Connell  for  his  infinite  tact,  geniality  and 
generous  hospitality.  True  to  the  idea  of  a  chief  of 
a  clan,  O'Connell  always  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table, 
and  at  breakfast  wore  his  little  green  repeal  cap.  The 
house  was  comfortably  but  not  magnificently  fur- 
nished. Some  of  the  furniture  had  been  purchased  at 
the  auction  of  Lord  Clare's  belongings,  and  O'Connell 
loved  to  surprise  his  guests  wath  the  remark — "These 
were  once  present  at  high  Orange  orgies.  I  bought 
them  at  the  auction  of  that  petticoat  Robespierre,  Lord 
Clare." 

Throughout  his  life  O'Connell  was  passionately 
fond  of  hunting.  At  such  times  O'Connell  was  in  his 
element,  as  he  walked  or  ran  from  rock  to  rock,  keep- 
ing in  sight  of  the  dogs.  The  magnificence  of  the 
scenery,  the  pure  invigorating  air,  the  brilliant  sun- 
shine, the  baying  of  the  dogs  echoing  from  crag  to 
crag,  acted  upon  him  like  wine  and  he  was  wont  to 
laugh  and  shout  and  jest  with  his  party  like  a  schoolboy 
out  on  a  lark.  Mr.  Howitt,  who  visited  Darrynane  in 
1835,  has  described  the  mode  of  living  there  as  that 
of  an  elegant  country  gentleman.  Between  the  rocks 
and  the  sea  there  stretched  a  beautiful  meadow  which 
>vas  a  favorite  promenade  and  playground  for  the 
peasantry,  and  it  was  the  practise  of  O'Connell  on 
Sunday  afternoons,  to  take  his  family  and  walk  among 
the  peasants,  exchanging  jests  with  them,  and  watching 
them  in  their  dancing  and  games.  To  these  simple  folk 
he  was  a  veritable  chief.    He  heard  their  troubles,  ad- 


318  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

vised  them  in  their  difficulties,  composed  their  quarrels, 
settled  their  differences,  and  his  word  meant  more  to 
them  than  the  decree  of  the  highest  court  in  Ireland. 
In  1835  a  cowardly  attempt  was  made  to  create  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  a  cruel  or  indifferent  landlord, 
and  some  of  the  English  papers  teemed  with  libelous 
stories  of  the  condition  of  his  tenants.  W.  E.  Forster, 
an  English  writer,  visited  Darrynane  about  this  time 
and  satisfied  himself  that  the  charges  were  without 
foundation.  Lecky  also  credits  him  with  being  an 
ideal  landlord,  and  cities  in  justification  of  this  view 
his  action  during  the  cholera  epidemic  of  1834  when 
he  wrote  his  agent  to  spare  no  expense  in  alleviating 
the  sufferings  of  the  people;  to  provide  medical  atten- 
tion, to  see  that  all  the  poor  about  Darrynane  had  a 
meat  diet.  "Be  prodigal  of  my  means,"  he  wrote, 
"beef,  bread,  mutton,  medicines,  physician,  everything 
you  can  think  of." 

Little  wonder  that  the  man  who  was  abused  by  the 
English  press  for  accepting  the  annual  tribute  of  his 
people  for  services  rendered  on  the  ground  that  he 
was  enriching  himself  on  the  credulity  of  his  country- 
men should  have  found  himself  in  old  age  considerably 
embarrassed,  and  died  a  comparatively  poor  man. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  was  no  sentiment  or  po- 
etry in  the  nature  of  O'Connell.  The  best  evidence  to 
the  contrary  is  to  be  found  in  his  letter  to  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  written  from  Darrynane  in  1838: 

"Were  you  with  me  amidst  the  Alpine  scenery  sur- 
rounding my  humble  abode  listening  to  the  eternal  roar 
of  the  mountain  torrent  as  it  bounds  through  the  rocky 
defiles  of  my  native  glens,  I  would  venture  to  tell  you 
how  I  was  born  within  the  sound  of  the  everlasting  wave. 


DANIEL  O'CONNELL  319 

and  how  my  dreamy  boyhood  dwelt  in  Imaginary  inter- 
course with  those  who  were  dead  of  yore,  and  fed  its  fond 
fancies  upon  the  ancient  and  long  faded  glories  of  that 
land  which  preserved  Christianity  when  the  rest  of  now 
civilized  Europe  was  shrouded  in  the  darkness  of  godless 
ignorance.  Yes,  my  expanding  spirit  delighted  in  these 
day  dreams,  till,  catching  from  them  an  enthusiasm  which 
no  disappointment  can  embitter,  nor  accumulating  years 
diminish,  I  formed  the  high  resolve  to  leave  my  native 
land  better  after  my  death  than  I  found  her  at  my  birth, 
and,  if  possible,  to  make  her  what  she  ought  to  be — 

"  'Great,  glorious,  and  free. 

First  flower  of  the  earth,  and  first  gem  of  the  sea/  " 

Such  a  letter  was  never  written  by  one  barren  in 
sentiment,  or  unappreciative  of  poetry. 

The  life  of  O'Connell  in  Dublin  w^as  necessarily 
quite  different  from  that  of  the  lordly  man  of  leisure 
who  followed  his  dogs  day  after  day  into  the  moun- 
tains. After  lighting  his  own  fire,  he  was  accustomed 
to  sit  down  in  his  library  and  work  from  five  o'clock 
until  breakfast  was  ready  at  eight-thirty,  and  two 
hours  later  he  would  start  to  court,  almost  always 
walking  for  the  exercise.  At  three-thirty  o'clock, 
when  the  work  in  the  courts  w^as  over,  he  would  hurry 
to  the  ofiice  of  the  Catholic  association,  where  he 
would  look  over  the  mail,  wTite  an  enormous  number 
of  letters  and  petitions,  and  then  on  home  for  dinner. 
After  dining  he  would  mingle  with  his  family  until 
six-thirty,  when  he  invariably  retired  to  his  library, 
where  he  studied  until  nine- forty-five,  at  which  time 
it  was  his  practise  to  retire.  Few  men  could  have 
withstood  such  a  strain,  but  his  was  a  constitution  of 
iron. 


320  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

Great,  robust,  fighting  man  of  the  world  though  he 
seemed  to  be,  there  was  a  deeply  religious  strain  to  his 
character.  He  maintained  a  priest  always  at  his  home 
at  Darrynane.  After  the  death  of  his  wife  in  1837  he 
made  a  retreat  at  the  Mount  Melleray  Abbey,  near 
Nantes,  which  was  occupied  mostly  by  Irish  monks. 
He  reached  the  abbey  after  dark  and  was  met  at  the 
outer  gate  by  a  procession  of  monks,  who  sang  one  of 
their  grand  anthems.  When,  upon  kneeling,  the  Te 
Deum  Laiidamus  was  intoned  he  was  profoundly 
touched.  He  listened  to  an  address  of  welcome,  and 
then  retired  to  solitude,  speaking  thereafter  only  to  the 
abbot,  and  devoting  the  whole  time  to  prayer  and  med- 
itation. Admirers  who  called  were  refused  admission, 
and  he  entered  heart  and  soul  into  the  religious  atmos- 
phere of  the  place. 

X 

Of  O'Connell  the  orator  there  can  be  but  one  opin- 
ion— he  was  one  of  the  most  marvelous  the  world  has 
known.  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  himself  one  of 
the  foremost  orators  of  America,  after  having  heard 
him,  described  him  as  easily  the  first  orator  in  Europe. 
Duvergier,  the  French  critic,  after  having  listened  to 
him,  said :  "I  know  of  no  living  orator  who  communi- 
cates so  thoroughly  to  his  audience  the  idea  of  the 
most  profound  and  absolute  conviction."  Wendell 
Phillips,  the  m.ost  polished,  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
masters  of  the  art  of  oratory  that  America  has  pro- 
duced, in  his  eloquent  lecture  on  O'Connell  says  that 
"broadly  speaking,  his  eloquence  has  never  been 
equaled  in  modern  times."    And  again  he  says:    *T 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  321 

remember  the  solemnity  of  Webster,  the  grace  of  Ev- 
erett, the  rhetoric  of  Choate;  I  know  the  eloquence 
that  lay  hidden  in  the  iron  logic  of  Calhoun;  I  have 
melted  beneath  the  magnetism  of  Sargent  S.  Prentiss 
of  Mississippi,  who  wielded  a  power  few  men  ever 
had.  It  has  been  my  fortune  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  the 
great  speakers  of  the  English  tongue  on  the  other  side 
of  the  ocean.  But  I  think  all  of  them  together  never 
surpassed,  and  no  one  of  them  ever  equaled  O'Connell. 
Nature  intended  him  for  our  Demosthenes.  Never 
since  the  great  Greek  has  she  sent  forth  any  one  so 
lavishly  gifted  for  his  work  as  a  tribune  of  the  people." 
And  still  later,  in  dwelling  upon  O'Connell's  versatility, 
he  said :  "Webster  could  awe  a  senate,  Everett  could 
charm  a  college,  and  Choate  cheat  a  jury;  Clay  could 
magnetize  the  millions,  and  Corwin  lead  them  captive. 
O'Connell  was  Clay,  Corwin,  Choate,  Everett  and 
Webster  in  one." 

O'Connell  introduced  a  new  note  into  British  ora- 
tory. When  the  other  great  British  speakers  had  con- 
fined their  efforts  largely,  almost  wholly  to  parliament 
and  the  courts,  O'Connell  sought  his  audience  in  the 
great  masses,  the  unlettered  millions.  How  unutter- 
ably silly  would  have  been  a  Burkean  oration  before 
the  million  spread  out  upon  the  hill  of  Tara!  It  was 
the  prime  purpose  of  O'Connell  to  deliver  his  message 
and  to  strike  conviction  to  the  hearers.  "A  fine 
speech,"  he  once  said,  "is  a  great  thing,  but,  after  all, 
the  verdict  is  the  thing."  Consequently  he  adapted  his 
style  and  his  language  to  his  audience.  He  did  not 
confuse  them  with  close  reasoning,  bemuddle  them 
with  a  fine  show  of  learning — he  spoke  a  language  they 
could  understand.    He  used  a  canvas  too  immense  for 


322  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

delicate  shading.  He  had  to  employ  strong  and  vivid 
coloring,  and  his  strokes  were  necessarily  bold  rather 
than  subtle.  This  was  responsible  for  the  charge  of 
coarseness  which  has  been  lodged  against  his  art.  All 
through  his  comparatively  fair  and  highly  illuminative 
monogram,  Lecky,  the  historian,  recurs  continuously 
to  the  use  of  the  words  ''mob  oratory"  in  describing  his 
popular  style.  He  could  not  mean  by  this  that  O'Con- 
nell  appealed  to  mobs.  His  audiences  were  famous  for 
their  peaceful  demeanor.  ''Mob  oratory"  is  oratory 
used  on  a  mob — and  with  Lecky  the  mob  is  the  great 
imsung  millions.  It  w^as  a  new  thing  in  0'Coni;ieirs 
day  to  appeal  to  "the  mob."  It  was  not  the  fashion. 
No  great  Irish  orator  previous  to  the  liberator  under- 
took it. 

Aside  from  his  personal  magnetism  and  command- 
ing appearance,  the  secret  of  O'Connell's  success  lay 
in  his  consummate  knowledge  of  human  nature.  He 
knew  its  intellectual  limitations  and  he  never  went  be- 
yond them.  He  was  never  tempted  to  explode  Dis- 
raelian  epigrams  above  their  heads  to  amuse  himself 
with  the  pyrotechnics.  He  understood  their  likes  and 
dislikes,  their  prejudices  and  passions,  and  he  played 
upon  their  emotions  at  will.  He  never  marred  the  ef- 
fect of  a  strong  speech  upon  the  crowd  by  over-adorn- 
ment. Shell,  who  was  a  master  rhetorician,  once  said 
that  O'Connell  "often  threw  out  a  brood  of  sturdy 
young  ideas  upon  the  world  without  a  rag  to  cover 
them." 

It  should  be  remembered  that  while  his  w^ork  was 
largely  before  the  millions,  he  was  not  limited  to 
what  Lecky  so  loves  to  call  his  "mob"  style.  In  his 
monogram  on  O'Connell  the  English  historian,  in  com- 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL  323 

paring  the  orator's  speech  to  the  multitude  and  that 
at  the  bar  of  the  house  in  claiming  his  seat,  says :  "To 
those  who  would  understand  O'Connell's  power  and 
the  versatility  on  which  it  so  largely  depended,  it  is 
instructive  to  compare  his  promises  to  the  Catholic  as- 
sociation with  his  speech  on  the  same  subject  at  the  bar 
of  the  house.  This  speech  at  once  established  his  par- 
liamentary position.  Clear,  pointed,  admirably  rea- 
soned and  admirably  arranged,  without  the  slightest 
tinge  either  of  egotism  or  declamation  or  bad  taste,  it 
was  a  legal  argument  of  the  best  kind,  delivered  with 
perfect  simplicity  of  gesture,  with  a  consummate 
beauty  of  voice  and  with  complete  self-possession  of 
manner."  Thus  we  are  justified  in  the  conclusion  that 
his  "mob'*  speeches  were  deliberately  planned,  and  with 
consummate  art. 

Few  orators  have  been  so  fortunate  in  their  physical 
appeal  to  the  senses.  Grattan,  Curran,  Emmet,  Sheil 
and  Meagher  were  small  men,  not  the  least  impressive 
to  the  eye.  O'Connell  was  a  man  of  royal  aspect.  His 
voice  was  seductively  musical — the  most  musical,  ac- 
cording to  Disraeli,  ever  heard  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons. It  was  soft,  of  great  compass,  capable  of  ex- 
pressing every  imaginable  emotion.  His  eyes,  light  in 
color,  and  full,  flashed  or  beamed  or  burned  according 
to  the  sentiment  expressed.  His  contemporaries  all 
mention  the  expressibility  of  his  mouth.  His  gestures 
were  free  and  bold,  not  in  the  least  suggestive  of  elocu- 
tion and  yet  infinitely  graceful  and  apt.  There  was 
nothing  in  his  manner  indicative  of  preparation.  His 
manner  was  easy,  and  without  effort.  Wendell  Phil- 
lips, who  heard  him,  says  in  his  lecture :  "We  used  to 
say  of  Webster,  This  is  a  great  effort,'  of  Everett,  Tt 


324  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

is  a  beautiful  effort/  but  you  never  used  the  word 
'effort'  in  speaking  of  O'Connell.  It  provoked  you 
that  he  would  not  make  an  effort." 

He  was  a  master  of  characterization.  The  London 
Times  he  contemptuously  dubbed,  "The  Old  Lady  of 
the  Strand";  the  clever  Stanley  he  called  "Scorpion 
Stanley";  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  denounced  in 
one  of  his  speeches,  which  greatly  shocked  the  English 
public,  as  "the  stunted  corporal."  His  most  bitter  and 
famous  invective  was  leveled  at  Disraeli,  certainly  not 
without  provocation. 

O'Connell's  invective  against  Saurin,  the  Orange  at- 
torney-general who  practised  his  persecutions  through 
such  a  long  period  of  years  with  the  evident  conniv- 
ance of  the  government,  is  famous  in  the  literature  of 
denunciation,  and  created  a  profound  sensation  at  the 
time  it  was  delivered  during  the  Magee  trial.  Another 
of  his  famous  invectives  was  aimed  at  Lord  Leveson 
Gower,  chief  secretary  of  Ireland,  whose  defense  of 
some  official  scamp  impelled  O'Connel  to  express  an 
opinion  of  the  type  of  politician  ordinarily  assigned  to 
the  position  of  secretary  in  Dublin. 

"Their  juvenile  statesmanship  is  inflicted  upon  my  un- 
happy country.  I  have  heard  that  barbers  train  their  ap- 
prentices by  making  them  shave  beggars.  My  wretched 
country  is  the  scene  of  his  (Gower's)  political  educa- 
tion— ^he  is  the  shave-beggar  of  the  day  for  Ireland.  I 
have  now  done  with  the  noble  lord.  I  disregard  his 
praise — I  court  his  censure.  I  can  not  express  how 
strongly  I  repudiate  his  pretensions  to  importance,  and 
I  defy  him  to  point  out  any  one  act  of  his  administration 
to  which  my  countrymen  could  look  with  admiration  oj 
gratitude,  or  any  other  feelings  than  those  of  total  dis- 
regard.     His  name  will  serve  as  a  date  in  the  margin 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL  325 

of  the  history  of  Dublin  Castle — his  name  will  sink  into 
contemptuous  oblivion." 

After  the  delivery  of  this  speech  the  secretaries 
for  Ireland  were  quite  frequently  referred  to  as 
"shave-beggars.'* 

When  the  Tories  took  office  and  appointed  an  Eng- 
lishman to  a  judicial  position  in  Ireland,  O'Connell 
bitterly  resented  what  he  assumed  to  be  an  insult  to 
the  Irish  bar.  In  a  burst  of  tremendous  bitterness  he 
exclaimed : 


"The  Tories  have  again  come  in,  and  their  first  act 
has  been  to  appoint  an  Englishman.  And  what !  Is  the 
bar  so  degraded  that  it  will  not  call  a  bar  meeting — that 
it  will  not  remonstrate — that  it  will  not  protest  against 
this  insult?  Is  the  spirit  of  Ireland  so  far  quenched — 
is  the  love  of  fatherland  so  gone  by  that  not  one  voice 
but  mine  will  exclaim  against  this  profanation  of  Irish 
talent — this  degradation  of  Irish  intellect — this  outrage 
upon  Irish  learning  and  acquirements — that  all,  all  must 
be  passed  by  and  an  Englishman  placed  over  our  heads? 
Oh,  shame  upon  those  who  do  not  love  their  country! 
Oh,  shame  upon  those  who  would  allow  any  pitiful,  pal- 
try, miserable  political  spleen  to  come  between  them  and 
the  genuine  expression  of  their  feelings !  Oh,  shame 
upon  those  who  will  allow  unnatural  divisions  with  their 
own  countrymen  to  deceive  them  into  being  slaves  to 
others !  Oh,  shame  upon  those  who  say  we  ought  to  be 
treated  as  inferiors  and  branded  as  slaves  in  our  native 
land! 

"And  what  profession  is  it  that  is  thus  treated  with 
contempt?  One  which  Hussey  Burgh  enlightened  with 
his  brilliant  oratory  in  my  own  time ;  that  profession  to 
which  Ducarry  gave  a  beauty  of  language  consecrated 
by  taste,  and  aided  by  the  powers  of  a  chaste  eloquence ; 
that  profession  in  which  I  have  heard  the  mingled  sweet- 


2>26  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

ness  of  tunes,  that  came  upon  me  like  soft  sounding  bells, 
and  pealing  forth  with  facts  beautified  with  illustration 
in  the  language  of  the  lamented  Yelverton;  that  profes- 
sion in  which  I  saw  scattering  around  me  the  brilliant 
coruscations  of  the  ethereal  genius  of  Curran.  Yes,  a 
genius  as  brilliant  as  it  was  warm — like  a  star  that  gives 
its  whiteness  to  the  milky  way,  his  mind  poured  forth 
a  flood  of  light,  and  its  magic  was  felt  by  all  who  came 
within  its  influence.  .  .  .  What,  am  I  to  be  told  that 
a  profession  which  produced  Curran  has  not  now  among 
its  members  one  who  will  acknowledge  himself  an  Irish- 
man ?  Who  will  not  resent  the  indignities  offered  to  them 
as  Irishmen  and  as  a  profession?  Oh,  if  it  be  so,  let 
them  wear  their  dog-collars,  and  let  'English  slave'  be 
branded  on  them,  as  they  slink  away  from  the  frown  of 
their  masters.  Let  the  boys  hoot  after  them  as  they 
slink  to  the  courts ;  let  the  women  spit  upon  them  at  the 
Ormond  market,  as  they  go  along — and  let  them  thus, 
covered  with  the  slime  and  filth  of  the  country,  go  like 
cringing  sycophants  and  soulless  slaves  and  crouch  before 
their  English  chancellor." 


O'Connell  knew  how  to  reach  the  heart.  One  of  his 
greatest  triumphs  in  stirring  the  emotions  can  not  be 
quoted  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  was  spoken  in  the 
Gaelic  tongue.  One  evening,  while  at  the  hotel  in 
Tralee,  the  people  gathered  in  front  demanding  a 
speech  and  the  orator  appeared  at  the  window  and 
addressed  them  in  their  native  tongue.  It  was  just 
after  the  massacre  of  some  Catholics  and  O'Connell 
whipped  them  into  a  frenzy  of  feeling  with  a  marvel- 
ously  pathetic  picture  of  a  widow  searching  among  the 
dead  for  her  son;  laughing  in  the  wildness  of  her  joy 
on  turning  over  the  bodies  and  finding  the  victim  to  be 
a  stranger,  until  at  length  she  found  her  child.  It  was 
a  short  speech,  but  the  picture  was  so  horribly  graphic, 


DANIEL    O'CONNELL  327 

so  overpoweringly  pitiful,  that  the  men  cursed  as  they 
wept. 

Now  colloquial  and  now  majestic  as  regality,  now 
convulsing  the  people  with  laughter  and  now  driving 
them  to  tears, , inciting  them  to  indignation,  playing 
upon  their  pride,  their  prejudice  and  their  patriotism, 
he  was  the  tribune  of  the  people  without  a  peer.  He 
proved  that  oratory  is  not  alone  of  value  in  the  parlia- 
ment house  or  in  the  courts.  He  pointed  the  way  to 
forcing  legislative  action  through  political  agitation  in 
the  country.  He  demonstrated  that  though  the 
press  be  purchased,  the  courts  be  polluted,  the 
public  places  be  filled  with  tyrants  or  weaklings,  that 
the  liberties  and  rights  of  the  masses  can  be  subserved 
so  long  as  they  can  find  one  eloquent  man  of  genius  to 
voice  their  protest. 


VII 

THOMAS  FRANCIS  MEAGHER 

The  Young  Ireland  Militant  Movement ;  the  Famine ;  the 
Uprising  of  1848 

IT  was  about  the  time  that  Lamartine  gave  to  the 
world  his  graphic  story  of  the  party  of  the 
Gironde,  that  a  new  party,  suggestive  of  the  briUiant 
revolutionary  organization  by  virtue  of  the  extraordi- 
nary brilliancy  and  youth  of  its  leaders,  was  born  in 
Ireland.  This  party  was  born  of  the  popular  demand. 
O'Connell,  now  in  his  decline  after  Clontarf,  had 
aroused  the  nation  to  a  realization  of  its  rights,  but 
lacked  the  courage  to  lead  it  to  battle.  The  masses 
were  calling  loudly — "The  word,  O'Connell,  give  us 
the  word" — and  he  was  silent.  And  in  that  silence  the 
new  Irish  party  was  born — the  party  known  to  history 
as  Young  Ireland. 

In  the  autumn  of  1842,  a  new  paper  was  launched 
in  Dublin  which  was  to  become  the  nucleus  of  the  new 
organization — The  Nation.  It  was  the  virile  voice  of 
nationality.  It  electrified  the  reawakened  intellect  of 
Ireland.  Its  mission  was  to  create  a  national  spirit,  to 
develop  a  national  life,  to  amalgamate  all  factions,  all 
religions,  the  descendants  of  all  nationalities  into  one 
harmonious  whole,  and  dedicate  it  to  the  cause  of  inde- 
pendence.   Its  pages  fairly  scintillated  with  the  genius 

328 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       329 

of  its  writers,  and  its  publication  marked  the  literary 
renaissance  of  the  green  isle.  The  dynamic  power  of 
The  Nation  was  the  genius  of  Thomas  Davis,  the 
brilliant  poet,  whose  passion  for  a  restored  nationality 
conceived  the  national  movement  to  go  beyond  the 
restoration  of  the  parliament  and  to  embrace  the  crea- 
tion of  an  Irish  literature,  an  Irish  art,  an  Irish  in- 
dustry, and,  if  need  be,  an  Irish  army.  His  militant 
poetry  gave  to  Erin  her  Marseillaise,  and  his  vigorous 
prose  stirred  like  the  marching  of  many  men.  The  of- 
fice of  The  Nation  became  the  recruiting  station  of 
genius  and  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  Thomas  Darcy  Mc- 
Gee,  Thomas  Devin  Reilly,  Lady  Wilde,  and  that 
Ulster  lawyer  who  was  statesman,  writer,  soldier, 
propagandist,  organizer  all  in  one,  John  Mitchell,  en- 
listed for  the  war.  Thus  the  leaven  of  Erin  began  to 
v/ork. 

Then  came  the  calamity  that  momentarily  left  Ire- 
land cold,  the  melancholy  death  of  Davis — a  calamity 
converted  into  a  blessing,  for  his  memory  became  a 
pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  of  fire  by  night,  exhorting 
the  youth  of  Ireland  to  be  up  and  doing.  The  organ- 
izing genius  of  Smith  O'Brien,  the  pen  of  Mitchell, 
the  songs  of  Lady  Wilde  created  an  appeal  reaching 
down  from  the  drawing-rooms  of  Dublin  to  the  most 
humble  cottage  in  Kerry.  But  brilliant  though  the  pen 
of  Mitchell,  thrilling  though  the  songs  of  the  Irish 
woman,  inspiring  though  the  soldierly  courage  of 
O'Brien,  the  militant  youth  would  have  been  seriously 
handicapped  in  its  appeal  from  the  conservative  policy 
of  the  eloquent  O'Connell,  had  it  not  possessed  a 
tongue  of  fire.  This,  too,  it  had — a  tongue  as  eloquent 
as  ever  yet  has  lashed  the  Celtic  nature  into  storm — 


330  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

the  tongue  of  the  orator  of  '48,  Thomas  Francis  Mea- 
gher— "Meagher  of  the  Sword." 


I 


In  the  house  on  the  quay  at  Water  ford,  latterly 
known  as  Cummins  Hotel,  on  August  twenty-third, 
1823,  Thomas  Francis  Meagher  was  born.  The  home 
into  which  he  entered,  if  not  one  of  opulence  or  pre- 
tension, was  one  of  comfort.  During  the  first  ten 
years  of  his  life  he  received  his  schooling  in  his  native 
city,  and  there  is  nothing  of  record  to  indicate  that 
at  this  time  he  had  given  any  evidence  of  the  surpris- 
ing precocity  which  was  so  soon  afterward  to  manifest 
itself.  It  was  here,  however,  that  he  fed  his  love  of 
Ireland  while  meandering  through  the  beautiful  coun- 
try about  the  seaport  town.  The  mountains  with  their 
mystery,  the  peaceful  valleys  with  their  flocks,  the  gen- 
tle streams,  all  the  manifold  beauties  of  nature  spoke 
to  his  imagination,  and  no  doubt  began  the  develop- 
ment of  the  poetic  fancy  which  was,  in  after  years,  to 
impart  such  charm  to  his  eloquence.  On  the  beautiful 
eminence  of  Mount  Misery,  so  wretchedly  misnamed, 
about  a  mile  from  the  city  and  overlooking  the  Suir, 
he  loved  to  sit  alone,  the  exquisite  panorama  of  city 
and  countryside  spread  out  before  him,  and  looking 
down  upon  ''town  and  tower,  dark  groves  and  distant 
spires,  rich  meadows  and  dark  cornfields,"  permit  his 
boyish  fancy  to  run  wild.  His  budding  genius  thrived 
on  solitude.  His  early  playmates  were  the  children  of 
his  fancy. 

In  his  eleventh  year  he  was  sent  to  the  Jesuit  Col- 
lege of  Clongowes-Wood,  which  was  situated  in  the 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       331 

fertile  plain  in  Kildare,  and  in  his  letters  we  find  that 
his  love  of  nature,  awakened  by  the  hills  and  rivers  of 
his  native  town,  seized  eagerly  upon  "the  landscape 
soothing  in  its  tendency,  serenely  placid,  rich,  inert, 
contented  looking,  and  dreamy." 

Here  in  the  great  building  with  the  round  towers  he 
spent  six  years  that  were  to  make  an  indelible  impres- 
sion upon  his  character  and  to  determine  the  course  of 
his  career.  Brilliant  in  all  his  studies,  it  is  significant 
that  in  English  composition  he  had  no  peer.  In  the 
college  debating  society  he  was,  by  common  consent, 
the  leading  member.  His  genius  was  in  words  and 
ideas  from  his  boyhood. 

Sometime  after  leaving  the  college  he  wrote  his  crit- 
icism of  the  school.  *They  talked  to  us,"  he  said, 
"about  Mount  Olympus  and  the  Vale  of  Tempe;  they 
birched  us  into  flippant  acquaintance  with  the  disrepu- 
table gods  and  goddesses  of  the  golden  and  heroic 
ages ;  they  entangled  us  with  Euclid ;  turned  our  heads 
with  the  terrestrial  globe ;  chilled  our  blood  with  dizzy 
excursions  through  the  Milky  Way;  paralyzed  our 
Lilliputian  loins  with  the  shaggy  spoils  of  Hercules; 
bewildered  us  with  the  battle  of  the  frogs  and  mice; 
pitched  us  precipitately  into  England  amongst  the  im- 
petuous Normans  and  the  stupid  Saxons;  gave  us  a 
look  through  the  interminable  telescope  at  what  was 
being  done  in  the  New  World ;  but  as  far  as  Ireland 
was  concerned  they  left  us  like  blind  and  crippled  chil- 
dren in  the  dark." 

When  in  his  seventeenth  year  he  passed  over  to 
England  for  the  completion  of  his  education  at  Stony- 
hurst  College,  where  he  remained  four  years.  He 
shocked  the  professor  of  English  literature  by  reading 


332  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Shakespearian  lines  with  a  pronounced  Irish  brogue, 
called  forth  the  horror  of  the  faculty  with  his  deviltry, 
and  maintained  his  superiority  to  all  his  fellows  in 
rhetoric,  composition  and  forenslcs. 

After  the  fashion  of  his  time,  he  topped  off  his  edu- 
cation by  a  continental  tour,  traversed  the  Rhine  coun- 
try, and  lingered  lovingly  in  the  old  medieval  cities 
with  their  tang  of  romance  and  mystery. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1844  he  began  his  profes- 
sional studies  at  Queen's  Inn,  Dublin,  where  he  was 
shocked  by  the  superficiality  of  society  and  its  depress- 
ing tendency  to  ape  English  taste.  It  was  the  time  of 
the  trial  of  O'Connell,  w^hen  Ireland  was  facing  her 
gravest  crisis,  and  it  maddened  him  to  find  the  tovv^n 
filled  w^ith  soldiers  and  spies,  the  hotels  overrun  by 
supercilious  English  reporters,  the  theaters  thronged 
with  the  gay  and  giddy,  and  the  fashionable  section  of 
the  city  aglow  with  dozens  of  balls  every  night.  To 
Meagher  there  was  but  one  redeeming  feature  to  the 
situation — the  inspirational  note  of  The  Nation,  the 
thundering  of  the  repeal  orators,  the  meetings  at  Con- 
ciliation Hall,  where  he  heard  Smith  O'Brien  denounce 
the  inactivity  of  Ireland  and  challenge  the  constituted 
authorities.  This  was  the  bugle  call  he  had  awaited — 
it  made  inevitable  the  course  he  was  to  follow. 


II 


When,  in  the  spring  of  '46,  Smith  O'Brien  conceived 
the  idea  of  organizing  the  youthful  genius  of  Ireland 
into  a  mJlitant  band  of  battling  patriots  through  the 
establishment  of  the  parliamentary  committee  of  the 
Repeal    Association,    Thomas  Francis  Meagher   was 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       333 

made  a  member  of  the  committee.  From  the  moment 
of  his  entrance  into  the  organization  the  fight  for  the 
Hberty  of  his  native  isle  became  the  serious  business 
of  his  Hfe.  He  threw  himself  into  the  work  with  an 
enthusiasm  that  kept  him  at  his  task  from  twelve 
o'clock  to  five  o'clock  every  day,  and  it  was  during 
this  period  that  he  was  brought  to  a  realization  of  the 
practical  importance  of  organization.  Content  though 
he  might  have  been  to  devote  himself  to  the  mere 
drudgery  of  the  committee,  the  keen  appreciative  eye 
of  O'Brien  almost  instantly  divined  that  the  genius  of 
the  new  recruit  was  of  an  exceptional  order,  and  that 
he  could  be  utilized  to  better  advantage  as  a  protag- 
onist of  the  cause.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
mistakes  of  O'Brien  he  can  not  be  charged  with  an 
inability  properly  to  appraise  men.  To  all  the  youthful 
converts  he  assigned  a  task  fitted  to  their  temperament, 
and  in  Meagher  he  foresaw  the  spokesman  of  the  radi- 
cals. Thus  was  he  assigned  the  duty  of  speaking  at 
Conciliation  Hall  on  February  sixteenth,  1846. 

When  the  slender  youth,  with  the  eloquent  eyes  and 
thrilling  voice,  faced  the  audience,  familiar  with  the 
genius  of  the  most  brilliant  patriots  of  Erin,  he  knew 
it  to  be  a  critical  assembly,  but  pursuing  the  policy 
which  he  never  wholly  abandoned,  he  had  prepared 
himself  with  the  most  painstaking  care.  The  beauty 
of  his  phraseology  and  imagery  and  magnetism  of  his 
presence  made  a  profound  impression  and  stamped 
him  as  a  new  orator  in  Ireland;  while  his  plea  for 
united  and  concentrated  action  conducted  with  dignity 
and  decorum  disclosed  the  possession  of  a  mature 
judgment.  Underlying  it  all  was  the  fierce  determina- 
tion that  Ireland  should  be  free.     The  opening  sen- 


334  THE   IRISH    ORATORS. 

tences  set  forth  concisely  the  views  he  never  abandoned 
* — the  views  that  finally  drove  him  in  chains  from  the 
land  of  his  nativity. 

"We  have  pledged  ourselves,"  he  said,  "never  to  ac- 
cept the  union — to  accept  the  union  upon  no  terms,  nor 
any  modification  of  the  union.  It  ill  becomes  a  country 
like  ours — a  country  with  an  ancient  fame — a  country 
that  gave  light  to  Europe  whilst  Europe's  oldest  state  of 
this  day  was  yet  an  infant  in  civilization  and  in  arms — 
a  country  that  has  written  down  great  names  on  the 
brightest  page  of  European  literature — a  country  that  has 
sent  orators  into  the  senate  whose  eloquence  to  the  latest 
day  will  inspire  free  sentiments  and  dictate  bold  acts — 
a  country  that  has  sent  soldiers  into  the  field  whose  cour- 
age and  honor  it  will  ever  be  our  proudest  privilege  to 
record,  if  not  our  noblest  duty  to  imitate — a  country 
whose  sculptors  rank  high  in  Rome,  and  whose  painters 
have  won  for  Irish  genius  a  proud  preeminence  even  in 
the  capital  of  the  stranger — a  country  whose  poets  have 
had  their  melodies  reechoed  from  the  most  polished 
courts  of  Europe  to  the  loneliest  dwelling  in  the  deep 
forest  beyond  the  Mississippi — it  ill  becomes  a  country 
so  distinguished  and  so  respectable  to  serve  as  the  sub- 
altern of  England,  qualified  as  she  is  to  take  up  an  emi- 
nent position  and  stand  erect  in  the  face  of  Europe." 

Thus,  lyrically,  he  winged  his  way  to  the  hearts  of 
his  hearers  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  reception  of 
his  declaration  of  faith : 

"Thus  shall  a  parliament,  molded  from  the  soil,  racy 
of  the  soil,  pregnant  with  the  sympathies  and  glowing 
with  the  genius  of  the  soil,  be  here  raised  up.  Thus  shall 
an  honorable  kingdom  be  enabled  to  fulfil  the  great  ends 
that  a  bounteous  Providence  hath  assigned  her — which 
ends  have  been  signified  to  her  in  the  resources  of  her 
soil  and  in  the  abihties  of  her  sons." 


General  Thomas   Francis  Meagher 

From  portrait  made  shortly  after  coming  to  the  United   States 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       335 

To  comprehend  thoroughly  the  thrill  of  delight  with 
which  the  patriots  of  Ireland  hailed  the  new  spokesman 
of  repeal  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Sheil  had  al- 
ready fallen  a  pathetic  victim  to  the  blandishments  of 
London,  and  O'Connell  had  given  evidence  of  decline. 
With  these  two  giants  of  the  platform  eliminated, 
there  had,  up  until  this  time,  appeared  none  other  to 
take  their  place. 

Meagher  was  the  spokesman  of  the  New  Movement ! 
He  appeared  upon  the  scene  just  at  the  juncture  when 
he  was  most  needed. 

The  altered  aspect  of  the  nationalist  cause  in  Ire- 
land had  grown  out  of  the  changed  political  complex- 
ion of  England.  The  Tories  had  lost  their  power  and 
the  Whigs,  under  the  leadership  of  Lord  John  Russell, 
had  assumed  control.  Just  previous  to  the  downfall 
of  the  Peel  ministry  a  conference  of  the  leaders  of  the 
opposition  had  been  held  at  the  residence  of  Lord 
John  in  which  O'Connell  and  his  son  had  participated, 
and  the  word  had  gone  forth  from  this  conference 
that  the  Irish  leader  had  insisted  that  all  he  asked  was 
"a  real  union — the  same  laws  and  franchises  in  the  two 
countries."  This  fateful  assurance  fell  upon  Ireland 
like  a  pall.  Against  the  prospective  alliance  between 
the  Irish  leaders  and  the  Wliigs  the  leaders  of  the 
younger  element  entered  a  vehement  protest  through 
The  Nation.  *'No  repealer,"  wrote  John  Mitchell, 
"even  would  dare  to  whisper  it  in  the  solitude  of  his 
chamber  lest  the  very  birds  of  the  air  might  carry  it  to 
an  Irish  ear."  At  an  exciting  meeting  in  Conciliation 
Hall,  Meagher  was  put  forth  to  voice  the  bitter  dissent 
of  the  militants.  Then  came  the  apostacy  of  Sheil, 
due  to  his  acceptance  from  the  Whigs,  of  the  mas- 


2,Z6  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

tership  of  the  mint,  and  his  reelection  to  the  house 
of  commons  with  the  votes  of  Whigs  and  the  covert 
aid  of  O'Connell.  The  break  between  the  venerable 
leader  and  the  militant  element  was  now  inevitable. 
Determined  to  defeat  the  militants  by  forced  marches 
the  father  of  emancipation  forced  through  a  meeting 
at  Conciliation  Hall  a  resolution  explicitly  pronounc- 
ing against  any  methods  of  amelioration  other  than 
those  of  a  peaceful  character.    The  lines  were  drawn. 

The  final  disruption  came  a  little  later.  The  dates 
were  July  twenty-seventh  and  twenty-eighth,  1846 — • 
vital  dates  in  Irish  history. 

The  scene  was  one  of  the  most  impressive  in  the 
political  history  of  the  island.  The  genius,  the  chiv- 
alry of  the  land  were  in  attendance — young  men  eager 
for  an  appeal  to  arms,  old  men  whose  memories 
reached  back  to  the  stirring  days  of  '98.  In  the  chair 
sat  the  lord  mayor  of  Dublin — a  splendid  figure. 
There  sat  the  son  of  the  venerable  leader  surrounded 
by  the  field  marshals  of  Old  Ireland.  There,  too,  with 
Meagher,  Mitchell  and  the  brilliant  leaders  of  the 
new  movement,  sat  the  son  of  Grattan  and  the  dashing 
Smith  O'Brien. 

Brushing  aside  the  importunities  of  O'Brien  to  de- 
sist from  action  tending  to  disruption,  John  O'Connell 
introduced  resolutions  calculated  to  drive  the  younger 
men  from  the  organization,  and,  confronted  by  the 
amazing  proposition  that  there  is  never  any  justifica- 
tion for  an  appeal  to  arms,  O'Brien  went  over  into  the 
ranks  of  Young  Ireland. 

The  climax  came  on  the  second  day.  Once  more 
Young  Ireland  put  forward  its  most  brilliant  orator. 
When  Meagher  rose  he  was  received  coldly.     The 


JHOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       2>Z7^ 

meeting  was  packed  against  him.  Gradually,  as  he 
warmed  to  his  subject,  the  audience  began  to  thaw. 
Indifference  yielded  to  amazement,  and  then  to  ad- 
miration, and  then  applause.  It  was  the  Sword  Speech 
— destined  to  scintillate  over  Europe  and  to  take  its 
place  among  the  classics  of  the  English  language.  As 
he  launched  like  an  inspired  poet  into  his  lyrical  apos- 
trophe to  the  sword  the  effect  was  magical.  He  held 
the  audience  within  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 


"Then,  my  lord,"  cried  the  orator,  "I  do  not  condemn 
the  use  of  arms  as  immoral ;  nor  do  I  conceive  it  pro- 
fane to  say  that  the  King  of  Heaven — the  Lord  of  Hosts 
— the  God  of  Battles — bestows  His  benediction  upon  those 
who  unsheathe  the  sword  in  the  hour  of  a  nation's  peril. 

*Trom  the  evening  on  which  in  the  valley  of  Bethulia 
He  nerved  the  arm  of  the  Jewish  girl  to  smite  the 
drunken  tyrant  in  his  tent  down  to  this,  our  day,  on 
which  He  has  blessed  the  insurgent  chivalry  of  the  Bel- 
gian priest,  His  ahnighty  hand  hath  ever  been  stretched 
forth  from  His  throne  of  light  to  consecrate  the  flag  of 
freedom — to  bless  the  patriot's  sword.  Be  it  in  the  de- 
fense, or  be  it  in  the  assertion  of  a  people's  liberty,  I 
hail  the  sword  as  a  sacred  weapon ;  and  if,  my  lord,  it 
has  sometimes  taken  the  shape  of  a  serpent  and  reddened 
the  shroud  of  the  oppressor  with  too  deep  a  dye,  like 
the  anointed  rod  of  the  high  priest,  it  has  at  other  times, 
and  as  often,  blossomed  into  celestial  flowers  to  deck  the 
freeman's  brow. 

"Abhor  the  sword — stigmatize  the  sword !  No,  my 
lord,  for  in  the  passes  of  the  Tyrol  it  cut  to  pieces  the 
banner  of  the  Bavarians,  and  through  those  cragged 
passes  struck  a  path  to  fame  for  the  present  insurrec- 
tionists of  Innsbruck. 

"Abhor  the  sword — stigmatize  the  sword!  No,  my 
lord,  for  at  its  blow  a  grand  nation  started  from  the 
waters  of  the  Atlantic ;  and  by  its  redeeming  magic,  and 


338  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

in  the  quivering  of  its  crimson  light,  the  crippled  colony 
sprang  into  the  attitude  of  a  proud  republic — prosperous, 
limitless,  invincible. 

"Abhor  the  sword — stigmatize  the  sword!  No,  my 
lord,  for  it  swept  the  Dutch  marauders  out  of  the  fine 
old  towns  of  Belgium — scourged  them  back  to  their  own 
phlegmatic  swamps,  and  knocked  their  flag  and  scepter, 
their  laws  and  bayonets,  into  the  sluggish  waters  of  the 
Scheldt, 

"My  lord,  I  learned  that  it  was  the  right  of  a  nation 
to  govern  herself,  not  in  this  hall,  but  upon  the  ramparts 
of  Antwerp.  This,  the  first  article  of  a  nation's  creed, 
I  learned  upon  those  ramparts,  where  freedom  was  justly 
estimated  and  the  possession  of  the  precious  gift  was 
purchased  by  the  effusion  of  generous  blood." 

By  this  time  the  audience  was  swaying  like  a  forest 
in  a  storm.  The  applause  was  born  of  ecstasy.  In- 
furiated by  the  effect,  the  son  of  O'Connell,  in  the 
spirit  of  an  angry  boy,  broke  in  with  a  protest  that  pre- 
vented the  completion  of  the  most  wonderful  oration 
that  stands  to  the  credit  of  the  historic  building  in 
which  the  genius  of  Ireland  had  so  frequently  burst 
into  flame. 

Then  it  was  that  the  disruption  came.  Young  Ire- 
land had  made  and  won  its  fight  in  the  legitimate 
methods  of  debate,  was  muzzled  in  the  erstwhile  cradle 
of  Irish  liberty,  and  when  Meagher  passed  from  the 
platform,  the  militants  of  Ireland  marched  in  a  body 
from  the  hall.  Meagher  had  reached  the  soul  of  Ire- 
land. It  was  "Speranza"  (Lady  Wilde)  who  put  in 
words  the  verdict  of  the  people : 

"Thus  in  glory  is  he  seen,  though  his  years  are  yet  but 
green — 
The  Anointed,  as  head  of  our  nation. 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       339 

For  High  Heaven  hath  decreed  that  a  soul  Hke  his  must 
lead — 
Let  us  kneel  then  in  deep  adoration. 

"Oh,  his  mission  is  divine — dash  down  the  Lotus  wine — » 

Too  long  in  your  tranced  sleep  abiding  ; 
And  by  Him  who  gave  us  life,  we  shall  conquer  in  the 
strife, 

So  we  follow  but  that  young  chief's  guiding." 


HI 


That  the  arrogant  attitude  toward  the  leaders  of 
Young  Ireland  did  not  represent  the  real  impulses  of 
Daniel  O'Connell  was  made  evident  in  a  scene  enacted 
in  the  study  of  the  Merrion  Street  home  of  the  old 
warrior  wdiere,  immediately  following  the  secession, 
he  sat  in  deep  depression  surrounded  by  some  friends. 
Turning  to  one  of  his  followers,  he  authorized  him  to 
invite  the  young  men  back  into  the  association  upon 
their  own  terms.  Just  as  the  messenger  of  peace  was 
about  to  leave,  John  O'Connell  entered  the  room,  and 
learning  of  the  intention  of  his  father,  promptly  vetoed 
the  proposition  of  conciliation.  Thus  does  the  son  of 
the  "uncrowned  king"  ever  appear  during  this  period 
in  a  sinister  light.  A  little  later  the  great  leader  did 
v/rite  a  personal  invitation  to  Meagher  to  return,  but 
by  this  time  the  die  had  been  cast  and  the  Rubicon 
crossed. 

Driven  from  the  one  organization  perfected  for 
patriotic  purposes  in  Ireland,  the  young  seceders  called 
a  mass  meeting  early  in  January  of  1847  in  the  rotunda 
where  the  Irish  Confederation  was  born.  In  a  set  of 
resolutions,  the  new  society  defined  its  methods,  ideas 


340  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

and  purposes.  With  a  subtlety  that  did  credit  to  their 
judgment,  the  seceders  disclaimed  the  slightest  ani- 
mosity toward  the  Repeal  Association,  basing  their  sep- 
aration solely  upon  a  difference  as  to  the  policy  to  be 
pursued.  Legislative  independence  for  Ireland,  abso- 
lute independence  of  all  English  parties,  the  combina- 
tion of  all  classes  and  creeds  in  the  interest  of  the  na- 
tional cause — these  were  the  striking  features  of  the 
declaration  of  the  Rotunda.  Thus  Young  Ireland  came 
into  possession  of  an  organization  of  its  own. 

After  all  it  was  a  happy  event  for  Ireland.  The  once 
powerful  O'Connell,  now  in  his  decline,  was  very  soon 
to  pass  from  the  scene.  The  year  of  desolation  had 
come.  The  gaunt  specter  of  famine  was  stalking 
through  the  land  knocking  at  the  cottage  doors.  Bat- 
tling against  starvation,  the  spirit  of  nationality  began 
to  flicker  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  Men  in  need  of 
bread  are  apt  to  forget  their  country.  At  such  an 
hour,  with  the  English  ministry  refusing  adequate  suc- 
cor to  the  starving,  and  with  the  once  trusted  leaders 
of  the  repeal  movement  playing  sycophants  to  the 
English  ministers  in  return  for  patronage,  the  spirit 
of  nationality  might  have  died  down  in  desolation  and 
dismay.  Might?  Nay,  would,  but  for  the  injection  at 
this  critical  juncture  of  the  virile  young  militants  of  the 
new  organization.  They  immediately  set  themselves 
the  task  of  reviving  the  drooping  spirits  of  the  patriots. 
In  every  village,  in  every  settlement,  wherever  a  cor- 
poral's guard  of  patriots  could  be  found,  a  Confedera- 
tion club  was  established.  In  a  surprisingly  short  time 
more  than  ten  thousand  young,  enthusiastic  and  de- 
termined men  were  mustered  into  the  new  army  of 
freedom.    These  men  were  prepared  to  vote  together 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER        341 

— more  significant  still,  prepared  to  fight  together 
should  their  leaders  give  the  word. 

It  was  in  connection  with  their  plans  for  constitu- 
tional agitation  for  legislative  independence  that  this 
little  band  of  young  men  conceived  the  plan  that  was 
to  be  so  successfully  put  into  operation  by  Parnell  more 
than  a  generation  later.  This  contemplated  the  election 
to  the  parliament  in  London  of  a  resolute  band  of  capa- 
ble and  courageous  m^en  who  could  be  depended  upon 
to  make  Irish  interests  cross  and  impede  and  dominate 
the  commons. 

This  idea,  which  met  w^ith  the  hearty  commendation 
of  Meagher,  did  not  measure  up  to  John  Mitchell's  con- 
ception of  the  need  of  the  hour.  To  the  forceful  editor 
of  The  Nation  the  time  for  parliamentarian  parley  had 
passed — the  time  had  come  for  an  appeal  to  arms. 
While  not  adverse  to  an  appeal  to  the  sword,  Meagher 
did  not  believe  that  the  people  had  been  adequately 
prepared  to  meet  the  power  of  the  imperial  army,  and 
this  division  of  opinion  led  to  a  special  meeting  of  the 
Confederation  and  a  debate  of  several  days'  duration 
ensued.  This  debate  was  to  put  a  period  to  one  phase 
of  Meagher's  revolutionary  career,  for  his  speech  on 
this  occasion  was  to  be  the  last  of  his  "constitutional" 
addresses.  Even  in  this  speech  he  shadowed  forth  the 
spirit  that  he  was  suppressing  with  difficulty  at  the 
time. 


"You  know  well,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  not  one  of  those 
tame  moralists  who  say  that  liberty  is  not  worth  a  drop 
of  blood.  Against  this  miserable  maxim  the  noblest  vir- 
tue that  has  served  and  sanctified  humanity  appears  in 
judgment.  From  the  blue  waters  of  the  bay  of  Salamis 
— from  the  valley  over  which  the  sun  stood  still  and 


342  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

lit  the  Israelite  to  victory — from  the  cathedral  In  which 
the  sword  of  Poland  has  been  sheathed  in  the  shroud 
of  Kosciusko — from  the  convent  of  St.  Isadore,  where 
the  fiery  hand  that  rent  the  ensign  of  St.  George  upon 
the  plains  of  Ulster  has  crumbled  into  dust — from  the 
sands  of  the  desert  where  the  wild  genius  of  the  Alger- 
ine  so  long  has  scared  the  eagle  of  the  Pyrenees — from 
the  ducal  palace  in  this  kingdom  where  the  memory  of 
the  gallant  and  seditious  Geraldine  enhances,  more  than 
royal  favor,  the  nobility  of  his  race — from  the  solitary 
grave,  which,  within  this  mute  city,  a  dying  request  has 
left  without  an  epitaph — oh,  from  every  spot  where  hero- 
ism has  had  its  sacrifice,  or  its  triumph,  a  voice  breaks 
in  upon  the  cringing  crowds  that  cheer  this  wretched 
maxim,  crying  out,  'Away  with  it,  away  with  it !'  Would 
to  God,  Sir,  that  ^we  could  take  every  barrack  in  this 
island  this  night,  and  with  our  blood  purchase  the  inde- 
pendence of  our  country." 

It  was  inevitable  that  a  speech,  so  insidiously  dan- 
gerous and  appealing,  should  have  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Castle,  and  from  the  hour  of  its  delivery 
Meagher  was  a  marked  man.  The  Confederation 
voted  on  this  occasion  as  Meagher  voted,  but  it  felt 
deep  down  in  its  heart  as  Meagher  felt  when  he  gave 
utterance  to  the  words  just  quoted.  The  debate  served 
notice  on  the  ministry  in  London  that  policy  alone  pre- 
vented the  Confederation  from  issuing  a  call  to  arms. 

The  debate  had  scarcely  closed  when  Meagher  found 
himself  involved  in  a  contest  which  gave  an  opportunity 
for  a  reiteration  of  his  militant  opinions  and  his  de- 
testation of  the  Irish  alliance  wdth  the  Whigs.  A 
vacancy  occurring  in  the  parliamentary  representation 
of  his  native  city  of  Waterford  he  determined  to  try 
conclusions  with  the  candidate  put  forth  by  the  Whigs 
>vith  the  support  of  the  O'Connellites.   .With  all  the 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       343 

burning  impetuosity  of  his  fiery  nature  he  plunged  into 
the  fight.  Not  only  did  he  face  the  miserable  open 
enemies  of  his  country's  independence,  but  he  encoun- 
tered all  the  animosity  of  the  old  school  of  repealers 
who  clung  tenderly  to  the  "uncrowned  king."  It  is 
significant  of  the  spirit  of  the  orator  that  even  the  op- 
position of  his  father  failed  to  dampen  his  spirits.  His 
speeches  on  the  hustings  were  the  most  passionate  of 
his  career.  He  spared  neither  the  devotee  of  old  Ire- 
land nor  the  Whigs,  and  he  pounced  upon  the  place 
hunters  with  a  ferocity  that  commanded  the  admiration 
even  of  his  enemies. 

"Well  then,"  he  exclaimed,  *'is  Old  Ireland  still  your 
cry  ?  Old  Ireland  indeed !  I  am  not  against  Old  Ire- 
land, but  I  am  against  the  vices  that  have  made  Ireland 
old.  The  enmity  I  bear  to  the  legislative  union  is  not 
more  bitter  than  the  enmity  I  bear  to  those  practises  and 
passions  from  which  that  union  derives  its  ruinous  vi- 
tality." 

Turning  to  the  *'bigot  who  would  sacrifice  his  nation 
to  the  supremacy  of  a  sect,"  he  hurried  on  to  the  place 
hunters. 

"Down  with  the  place  hunter — he  who  would  traffic 
on  a  noble  cause,  and  beg  a  bribe  in  the  name  of  liberty. 
He  who  would  spurn  the  people,  upon  whose  shoulders 
he  had  mounted  to  that  eminence  from  which  he  had 
beckoned  to  the  minister  and  said,  *Look  here — a  slave 
to  hire — a  slave  of  consequence — a  valuable  slave — ^the 
people  have  confided  in  me.'  " 

At  the  time  of  Meagher's  candidacy  Water  ford  had 
a  population  of  twenty-eight  thousand  people  of  whom 


344  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

but  seven  hundred  were  qualified  to  vote.  Throughout 
the  contest  his  magnetic  personality  and  inspiring  elo- 
quence easily  made  him  the  popular  idol.  The  dis- 
franchised thousands,  the  toilers,  the  cottagers,  the 
poor,  gave  him  their  applause,  their  love,  their  adora- 
tion, but  they  had  no  votes  to  give,  and  when  the  bal- 
lots were  counted  it  was  found  that  he  had  been  de- 
feated by  twenty  votes. 

If  the  young  leader  was  chagrined  at  his  defeat  he 
had  no  time  to  nurse  his  humiliation,  for  it  was  the 
year  of  *48 — ^the  glorious  year  of  the  people,  the  critical 
year  for  kings  and  crowns.  The  spirit  of  liberty  hov- 
ered over  Europe  and  long-slumbering  peoples  awoke 
to  a  realization  of  their  strength.  In  France  the  people 
had  fought  behind  barricades  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
and  rewon  their  liberties.  Once  more  the  despondent 
of  Ireland  turned  hopefully  to  the  nation  that  had  been 
saved  at  Fontenoy  by  the  valor  of  an  Irish  brigade, 
just  as  they  turned  to  France  in  '98,  as  the  lamented 
Emmet  turned  a  little  later.  Seizing  the  psychological 
opportunity  the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Confederation 
called  a  meeting  to  formulate  an  address  to  the  French 
people.  This  meeting  was  infested  by  the  spies  of  the 
government.  This  Meagher  knew,  and  knowing,  he 
defiantly  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  England  in  a 
speech  as  revolutionary  and  incendiary  as  has  ever  been 
heard  in  Ireland. 

"If  the  throne  stand  as  a  barrier  between  the  Irish  peo- 
ple and  their  supreme  right,"  he  said,  "then  loyalty  will 
be  a  crime,  and  obedience  to  the  executive  will  be  treason 
to  the  country.  I  say  it  calmly,  seriously,  deliberately; 
it  will  then  be  our  duty  to  fight  and  fight  desperately." 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       345 

At  the  utterance  of  these  words  the  assembly  rose  as 
one  man  and  the  orator  was  given  a  tremendous  ova- 
tion. 

"The  opinions  of  Whig  statesmen  have  been  quoted 
here  to-night,"  he  continued.  *'I  beg  to  remind  you  of 
Lord  Palmerston's  language  in  reference  to  the  insurrec- 
tion in  Lisbon  last  September — 'I  say  that  the  people 
were  justified  in  saying  to  the  government:  "If  you  do 
not  give  us  a  parliament  in  which  to  state  our  wrongs 
and  grievances  we  shall  state  them  by  arms  and  by 
force." ' 

"I  adopt  those  words  and  I  call  upon  you  to  adopt 
them." 

By  this  time  the  speaker's  meaning  had  grown  plain. 
He  was  reversing  his  speech  in  reply  to  Mitchell.  He 
was  making  his  appeal  to  the  sword  specific. 

"The  storm  that  dashed  down  the  crown  of  Orleans 
against  the  column  of  July,"  he  continued,  "has  rocked 
the  foundations  of  the  Castle.  They  have  no  longer  a 
safe  bedding  in  the  Irish  soil.  To  the  first  breeze  that 
shakes  the  banners  of  the  European  rivals  they  must  give 
way.  Be  you  upon  the  watch  to  catch  that  breeze.  When 
the  world  is  in  arms — when  the  silence  which  for  two 
and  thirty  years  has  reigned  upon  the  plain  of  Waterloo 
at  last  is  broken — then  be  prepared  to  grasp  your  free- 
dom with  an  armed  hand,  and  hold  it  with  the  same." 

It  was  not  until  the  conclusion  that  Meagher  threw 
his  personal  challenge  in  the  faces  of  the  governmental 
spies  that  were  sprinkled  through  the  crowd. 

"Citizens  of  Dublin,  you  have  heard  my  opinions. 
These  opinions  may  be  very  rash,  but  it  would  not  be 
honest  to  conceal  them.     The  time  has  come  for  every 


346  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

Irishman  to  speak  out.  The  address  of  the  university 
declares  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  man  in  the  kingdom 
to  say  whether  he  is  a  friend  or  a  foe  to  the  government. 
I  think  so,  too,  and  I  declare  myself  an  enemy  of  the 
government." 

This  speech  created  a  profound  sensation,  and  the 
following  week  the  orator  was  arrested,  along  with 
Mitchell  and  O'Brien,  on  the  charge  of  sedition.  Thus 
was  the  challenge  accepted. 

When  these  three  popular  heroes  passed  through  the 
streets  of  Dublin  to  the  police  office  to  give  bail,  they 
probably  could,  by  the  raising  of  a  hand,  have  pre- 
cipitated a  riot  that  would  have  developed  into  a  revolu- 
tion within  twenty- four  hours.  A  vast  multitude  went 
with  them.  It  packed  the  streets  from  curb  to  curb, 
men  in  ugly  mood,  with  flashing  eyes,  and  feverish 
brows.  It  marched  with  that  comparative  silence  which 
bodes  no  good  to  the  enemy.  All  the  passions  of  the 
race,  all  the  pitiful  memories  of  the  years — evictions, 
massacres,  legal  assassinations — all  marched  with  the 
throng.  The  heroes  in  front  embodied  the  burning 
soul  of  Ireland.  The  multitude  behind — mob  if  you 
will — was  the  brawn  of  a  mighty  people  prepared  to 
strike. 

Meagher,  Mitchell  and  O'Brien  enter  the  police  office, 
furnish  bail,  come  out  again.  At  the  head  of  the  mul- 
titude they  proceed  to  the  council  room  of  the  Con- 
federation. The  crowd  is  augmented  at  every  intersec- 
tion. The  windows  along  the  line  of  march  are  packed 
with  men  with  tense  faces  as  Ireland  goes  marching 
by.  From  the  lamp-posts — significant  in  the  hour  of 
revolution — are  clinging  boys  and  men.  The  rain 
comes  down  in  torrents,  as  Ireland  goes  marching  by, 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       347 

Reaching  the  council  rooms  Meagher  appears  at  the 
windows.  The  mukitude  stands  silent  in  the  rain.  And 
then  in  the  spirit  and  manner  of  a  commander,  giving 
the  w^ord  to  charge,  the  orator  defies  the  power  of  im- 
perial England. 

"The  language  of  sedition  is  the  language  of  freemen. 
There  shall  be  no  duplicity  in  this  matter.  I  am  guilty 
of  an  attempt  to  sow  disaffection  in  the  minds  of  the 
people.  I  am  guilty  of  an  attempt  to  overthrow  this  gov- 
ernment, which  keeps  its  footing  on  our  soil  by  brute 
force  and  by  nothing  else.  The  news  this  morning  an- 
nounces that  Vienna  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  Dub- 
lin must  be  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  Stand  by  us, 
citizens,  and  it  shall  be  done." 

Thus  defiant,  IMeagher  passes  over  with  the  deputa- 
tion from  the  Confederation  to  Paris,  where  he  meets 
Lamartine,  only  to  find  the  man  of  the  fiery  pen  a  man 
of  prudence  and  policy.  This  did  not  prevent  him, 
however,  from  talking  treason  to  the  new  leaders  of  the 
French.  If  Lamartine  was  cold,  Ledru  Rollin  favored 
the  despatch  of  instant  assistance  to  the  Irish.  At- 
tending the  opera,  frequenting  the  cafes,  Meagher 
thought  only  of  his  country.  The  signs  of  the  revolu- 
tion in  Paris  were  still  fresh.  The  barricades  were 
hardly  down.  The  wounded  patriots  still  lingered  in 
the  hospitals — their  rooms  filled  with  the  fragrance  of 
flowers.    And  Meagher  hurried  home. 

IV 

Meanwhile  the  followers  of  the  Confederation 
throughout  Ireland  were  busily  engaged  in  preparing 
for  the  conflict  of  anns  which  seemed  inevitable.    All, 


348  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

who  could,  purchased  guns  and  ammunition,  and  the 
poor  saved  their  money,  deprived  themselves,  and 
bought  pikes.  During  the  early  months  of  '48  Dublin 
once  more  began  to  take  on  something  of  the  dignity 
of  an  industrial  community,  albeit  the  one  prevailing 
industry  appeared  to  be  the  manufacture  of  pikes. 
Meagher  and  Mitchell  were  compelled  to  share  in  pop- 
ularity w^ith  David  Hyland — Pike  Maker.  No  one  fa- 
miliar with  the  situation  could  fail  to  know  that  an 
armed  conflict  was  inevitable,  that  a  crisis  was  impend- 
ing. While  the  government  of  the  Castle  was  entirely 
cognizant  of  the  conspiracy  of  the  revolutionists  who 
made  no  serious  effort  to  conceal  their  purpose,  it  con- 
tented itself  at  this  juncture  by  passing  the  "treason- 
felony  act"  w^hich  gave  it  the  power  to  exile  for  nat- 
ural life  any  one  found  guilty  of  sedition. 

Taking  advantage  of  the  cat  and  mouse  policy  of  the 
government,  Meagher  and  his  compatriots  determined 
upon  the  holding  of  a  series  of  meetings  throughout 
the  island  for  the  purpose  of  arousing  the  people  and 
organizing  them  for  the  uprising.  The  first  of  this 
historic  series  of  meetings  was  held  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Sarsfield  Club  at  Limerick  in  honor  of  "The 
Prosecuted  Patriots,"  for  Meagher,  Mitchell  and 
O'Brien  had  not  yet  been  tried.  It  was  while  the  fes- 
tivities were  in  progress  that  a  mob  composed  of  the 
Old  Irelanders,  who  had  worshiped  at  the  shrine  of 
O' Council,  gathered  outside  the  banquet  hall,  made  an 
attack  upon  the  building,  breaking  the  windows  with 
stones.  O'Brien,  going  to  the  door  to  remonstrate, 
w^as  struck  by  a  flying  missile.  This  cowardly  attack  by 
Irishmen  upon  men  v/ho  vs^ere  endangering  their  lives 
and  liberties  to  serve  the  national  cause  so  infuriated 


THOMAS    FR.\NCIS    MEAGHER       349 

Meagher  that  his  speech  on  this  occasion  surpassed  in 
seditious  sentiments  anything  he  had  ever  said  before. 

"Yes,  from  this  day  out,"  he  exclaimed,  "you  must  lie 
down  and  eat  your  words.  Yes,  you — you  starved 
wretch,  lying  naked  in  that  ditch,  with  clenched  teeth 
and  staring  eye,  gazing  on  the  clouds  that  redden  with 
the  flames  in  which  your  hovel  is  consumed — what  mat- 
ters it  that  the  claw  of  hunger  is  fastening  in  your  heart 
— what  matters  it  that  the  hot  poison  of  the  fever  is 
shooting  through  your  brain — what  matters  it  that  the 
tooth  of  the  lean  dog  is  cutting  through  the  bone  of  that 
dead  child  of  which  you  were  once  the  guardian — what 
matters  it  that  the  lips  of  that  specter  there,  once  the 
pride  and  beauty  of  the  village  where  you  wooed  and 
won  her  as  your  bride,  are  blackened  with  the  blood  of 
the  youngest  to  which  she  has  given  birth — what  matters 
it  that  the  golden  grain  which  sprung  from  the  sweat 
you  squandered  on  the  soil  has  been  torn  from  your 
grasp — what  matters  it  that  you  are  thus  pained  and 
stung — thus  lashed  and  maddened?  Hush — beat  back 
the  passion  that  rushes  to  your  heart — die — die  without 
a  groan — die  without  a  struggle — die  without  a  cry — 
for  the  government  which  starves  you  desires  to  live  in 
peace." 

The  next  meeting  was  to  be  at  Water  ford,  the  native 
place  of  the  most  eloquent  orator  of  the  militants,  and 
learning  of  the  indignity  to  wdiich  Meagher  and 
O'Brien  had  been  subjected  at  Limerick,  the  patriots 
of  Waterford  marched  in  an  immense  concourse  to 
Carrick  to  meet  and  welcome  them  on  the  way.  Every 
mile  was  a  triumph,  every  moment  an  ovation.  It  was 
on  such  occasions  as  this  that  Meagher  shone  at  his 
best.  The  vast  crowd,  the  tumult,  the  concentrated 
passion,  called  forth  the  dramatic  instinct  which  w^as 
a  predominant  trait  of  his  character.     As  the  throng 


350  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

was  entering  Water  ford  it  passed  along  the  quay  where 
a  British  man-of-war  was  moored.  With  a  theatrical 
gesture,  and  a  contemptuous  glance  at  the  man-of-war, 
Meagher  halted  the  procession,  saying  that  "he  would 
select  that  place  whence  to  remind  his  hearers  that  their 
country  was  not  in  their  own  hands — that  it  was  held 
by  force." 

The  meeting  in  Water  ford  was  a  monster  one  and 
here  Meagher,  knowing  of  the  presence  of  the  spies, 
boldly  urged  upon  the  people  the  necessity  of  procuring 
arms  at  once.  This  advice,  given  with  an  effrontery 
that  must  have  staggered  the  sycophants  of  the  Castle, 
was  repeated  at  Kilkenny,  where  the  orators  were  mag- 
nificently received. 

Following  these  meetings  Meagher  returned  to  Dub- 
lin for  his  trial.  On  the  way  to  the  court  he  was  accom- 
panied by  the  clubs  of  the  Confederation — the  whole 
of  Dublin  one  seething  m.ass  of  determined  and  defiant 
men.  The  jury  in  the  trial  of  both  Meagher  and 
O'Brien  had  been  packed.  Nevertheless,  enough  decent 
patriotic  men  slipped  into  the  jury  box  to  hang  the 
jury.  Walking  proudly  from  the  room  sacrilegiously 
called  the  court  of  justice,  Meagher  placed  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  procession  of  the  waiting  clubs  and 
led  it  on  its  ominous  march  through  the  streets  to  the 
headquarters  of  the  Confederation,  where  he  voiced 
an  indignant  protest  against  any  attempt  to  pack  the 
jury  in  the  case  of  Mitchell.  Indeed  the  Confederation 
seriously  considered  the  feasibility  of  a  rescue  in  the 
event  of  his  conviction  and  but  for  the  fear  of  Meagher 
that  such  an  undertaking  might  react  seriously  upon  the 
cause  this  doubtless  would  have  been  done. 

The  expected  happened.   The  jury  was  notoriously 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       351 

packed  against  Mitchell,  who  was  convicted  in  accord- 
ance with  instructions  from  the  government.  The 
scene  which  followed  at  Newgate — the  Irish  bastile — 
beggars  description.  All  the  approaches  were  guarded 
with  soldiers,  police  and  lancers.  The  streets  fairly 
swarmed  with  infuriated  patriots.  But  for  the  decision 
of  the  leaders  to  attempt  no  rescue,  these  men  in  the 
streets,  aflame  with  hate,  with  arms  concealed  upon 
their  persons,  could  have  swept  soldiers,  police  and 
lancers  into  perdition.  The  speech  of  Mitchell  from  the 
dock  aroused  the  fighting  blood  of  the  men  in  the 
room,  and  the  spirit  spread  like  wild  fire  into  the 
crowd  outside.  Terrified  by  the  mutterings,  petrified 
by  the  scowls  of  the  people,  the  officials  attempted  to 
push  Mitchell  through  the  doorway  and  into  a  rear 
room  to  prevent  a  rescue.  This  indignity  was  too  much 
for  some  of  his  friends,  who  made  a  rush  toward  him. 
It  might  have  been  the  beginning  of  the  end.  It  would 
have  been  but  for  the  advice  of  Meagher.  From  the 
realization  of  this  fact  Meagher  was  never  after  able 
to  escape. 

At  a  great  mass  meeting  which  followed  the  de- 
portation of  the  patriot  editor  and  agitator,  the  orator 
exonerated  the  Confederation  and  took  upon  himself 
the  blame.  They  who  would  condemn — and  many 
have — must  ascribe  Meagher's  action  to  the  head  and 
not  the  heart.  No  tenderer  words  have  ever  fallen 
from  mortal  tongue  than  those  in  which  he  took  upon 
himself  the  blame,  and  the  famous  passage  beginning 
with  the  words,  "There  is  a  black  ship  upon  the  south- 
ern seas  to-night,"  gave  to  posterity  a  tribute  to  John 
Mitchell  that  has  never  been  surpassed  in  beauty  or  in 
eloquence.    It  is  well  for  Irishmen  to  know  that  Mitch- 


352  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

ell  understood.  The  love  these  two  men  bore  each 
other  was  that  of  brothers. 

The  deportation  of  Mitchell,  however,  nerved  the 
Confederation  to  final  action.  It  was  swiftly  followed 
by  a  formal  conspiracy.  The  council  of  the  Confedera- 
tion became  a  revolutionary  committee.  The  decision 
was  reached  to  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to  the  govern- 
ment after  the  ripening  of  the  harvest,  but  the  gov- 
ernment, now  seriously  concerned,  determined  to  act, 
and  the  leaders  of  Young  Ireland  were  arrested. 

The  officers  with  their  warrant  found  the  most  bril- 
liant of  the  leaders  at  the  home  of  his  father  in  Water- 
ford,  where  he  was  placed  under  arrest.  The  news 
spread  throughout  the  city  that  Meagher  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  the  watch-dogs  of  the  Castle.  The  chapel 
bells  were  rung.  The  people  poured  into  the  streets  at 
the  sound  of  the  tocsin  as  in  the  days  of  the  Parisian 
revolution.  One  word  passed  from  lip  to  lip — "rescue,'*' 
"rescue,"  "rescue."  One  approving  nod  from  the 
young  orator,  and  the  officers  of  the  Castle  would  have 
been  as  helpless  as  a  leaf  on  a  raging  sea. 

Meagher  appeared  at  the  window  and  appealed  to 
the  people  to  desist — only  to  retire  despairing  of  suc- 
cess. Once  more  he  undertook  the  task  of  calming 
the  multitude  which  by  this  time  had  taken  on  the 
character  of  a  revolutionary  mob,  and  this  time  his 
pleading  had  some  effect. 

Meanwhile  a  military  force  had  arrived  upon  the 
scene  and  been  drawn  up  before  the  house — a  handful 
of  men  against  an  army.  Messengers  brought  the 
word  now  that  the  sturdy  men  of  Carrick-on-Suir  were 
on  the  march  to  meet  the  arrested  leader  and  his  mill- 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER        353 

tary  escort  to  do  battle,  and  Meagher  despatched 
friends  to  dissuade  them  and  turn  them  back. 

At  six  o'clock  a  carriage  drew  up  at  the  house.  The 
young  hero  made  a  last  passionate  and  affectionate 
appeal  to  his  fellow  townsmen  to  refrain  from  violence, 
the  dragoons  formed  on  either  side  of  the  vehicle  with 
drawn  swords,  and  followed  by  one  solid  mass  of  sul- 
len humanity  the  procession  started  through  the  streets 
of  the  city  in  which  all  the  shops  had  been  closed  as  a 
tribute  to  the  genius  of  its  favorite  son.  Old  men  and 
young,  with  teats  streaming  down  their  cheeks,  held 
forlh  appealing  aims  toward  the  carriage,  crying 
piteously,  *'Give  us  the  word.  For  God's  sake  give  us 
the  word." 

That  trip  to  Dublin  must  have  shaken  the  faith  of 
the  government  in  the  loyalty  of  ^^5  people.  Time  and 
a^ain  Meagher  was  forced  to  leave  tlie  carriage  to 
plead  with  the  people  who  were  determined  that  the 
travesty  of  the  Mitchell  case  should  not  be  re-enacted. 
After  reaching  the  capital  and  giving  bond,  he  was 
picked  up  bodily,  .and  on  the  backs  of  the  cheering 
populace  he  was  carried  through  the  streets,  pulsating 
with  revolutionary  passion,  to  his  hotel,  where  he  ap- 
peared at  the  window  and  delivered  what  was  destined 
to  be  his  last  speech  in  Dublin. 

Almost  immediately  Meagher  left  Dublin  in  the  hope 
of  arousing  the  people  of  the  south.  Looming  two 
thousand  four  hundred  feet  above  the  plain  of  Femhan 
about  midway  between  the  towns  of  Clonmel  and  Car- 
rick-on-Suir,  is  the  famous  mountain  of  Slievenamon 
where,  according  to  tradition,  an  ancient  Irish  chief 
once  sat  upon  a  stone  seat  and  watched  his  warriors 


354  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

engaged  in  the  chase  upon  the  plains  below.  It  was 
from  this  inspiring  eminence  that  Cromwell  surveyed 
the  country  and  exclaimed,  "That  is  a  country  worth 
fighting  for."  Here,  on  July  sixteenth,  1848,  was  held 
the  most  impressive  meetmg  associated  with  the  up- 
rising of  '48.  The  w^ord  had  gone  forth  that  Meagher 
and  his  compatriots  would  here  make  answer  to  the 
government  of  the  Castle.  It  was  Sunday — a  day  of 
insufferable  heat.  Meeting  at  Carrick,  the  clubs  of  the 
Confederation  marched  in  military  order  to  the  moun- 
tain. The  people  came  from  the  counties  of  Kilkenny, 
Water  ford  and  Wexford — pushing  their  way  over  the 
roads  to  the  mountain  packed  wnth  sweltering  men, 
women  and  children.  The  soldiers  at  Carrick  were 
under  arms,  but  the  people,  thoroughly  aroused,  paid 
no  heed,  but  pressed  up  the  steep  ascent. 

It  was  a  theatrical  Meagher  that  appeared  before 
the  countless  multitude.  He  wore  a  green  cap  with  a 
gold  band,  and  a  splendid  tri-colored  sash  was  wrapped 
about  him.  His  oration  on  this  occasion  was  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  of  his  career.  Looking  down  upon 
the  old  men  who  had  followed  O' Council,  he  said : 

"O'Connell,  like  all  great  men,  had  his  faults — ^but  he 
had  his  virtues  and  he  had  his  victories.  This  I  will 
say,  that  he  preached  a  cause  that  we  are  bound  to  see 
out.  He  used  to  say,  'I  may  not  see  what  I  have  labored 
for.  I  am  an  old  man — my  arm  is  withered — my  epitaph 
of  victory  may  mark  my  grave — but  I  see  a  younger  gen- 
eration with  red  blood  in  their  veins,  and  they  will  do 
the  work.' " 

Here  the  orator  paused  to  note  the  effect  while  a 
roar  of  applause  echoed  from  the  mountain.  Then 
with  a  sweeping  gesture  he  added : 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       355 

'Therefore  it  is  my  ambition  to  decorate  these  hills 
with  the  flag  of  my  country." 

Thus  did  he  make  his  appeal  for  the  amalgamation 
of  Old  and  Young  Ireland  in  behalf  of  the  liberty  of 
Ireland.  Then  he  followed  with  a  passage  of  classic 
eloquence : 

"A  scourge  came  from  God  that  ought  to  have  stirred 
you  to  greater  action.  The  potato  was  smitten ;  but  your 
fields  waved  with  golden  grain.  It  was  not  for  you.  To 
your  lips  it  was  forbidden  fruit.  The  ships  came  and 
bore  it  away,  and  when  the  price  rose  it  came  back,  but 
not  for  the  victims  whose  lips  grew  pale,  and  quivered 
— and  opened  no  more." 

It  is  recorded  by  those  present  that  this  reference  to 
the  deadly  work  of  the  famine,  when  men,  women  and 
children  starved  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  created  a  sen- 
sation in  the  crowd — to  many  of  whom  the  vivid  pic- 
ture suggested  a  loved  one  starved  through  the  cruel 
indifference  of  the  government. 

"Did  I  say  they  opened  no  more?"  he  added,  after  a 
pause.  "Yes,  they  did  open  in  Heaven  to  accuse  your 
rulers.  Those  lips,  fresh  and  beautiful  with  the  light  of 
God,  supplicated  His  throne,  and  He  has  blessed  our 
cause.  The  fact  is  plain  that  this  land,  which  is  yours 
by  nature  and  by  God's  gift,  is  not  yours  by  the  law  of 
the  land.  There  were  bayonets  therefore  between  the 
people  and  their  rightful  food." 

Thus  with  a  master  touch  the  orator  reached  the 
heart,  and  thus  he  tried  to  steel  the  arm  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  spies  hurried  reports  of  the  meeting  to  Dub- 
lin, and  the  authorities  of  the  Castle,  in  a  panic  of  fear, 
hastened  to  issue  the  order  that  precipitated  the  clash 


356  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

— the  order  to  the  people  to  give  up  their  arms.  Ac- 
cepting the  challenge  with  alacrity,  Meagher  instantly 
met  it  with  a  counter-order  to  the  people  to  stand  by 
their  arms  and  await  the  commands  of  their  leaders. 
Wherever  the  order  of  the  Castle  was  found — there 
side  by  side  was  the  order  of  Thomas  Francis  Meagher. 
Thus  was  the  issue  made  so  clear  that  even  the  blind 
could  see  and  understand. 


Meanwhile,  in  the  absence  of  Meagher  the  council  of 
the  Irish  Confederation  met  in  Dublin  to  determine 
upon  what  course  of  action  to  pursue.  The  rank  and 
file  of  the  clubs,  the  masses  of  the  people,  appeared  to 
favor  an  immediate  appeal  to  arms,  but  O'Brien 
thought  them  unprepared  to  try  conclusions  with  the 
trained  militia,  and  upon  the  motion  of  John  Dillon 
the  members  of  the  clubs  were  instructed  to  retain  and 
conceal  their  arms.  On  the  twenty-ninth  of  July  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  assume  absolute  control 
of  the  revolutionary  movement,  a  committee  with  func- 
tions somewhat  similar  to  the  committee  of  public 
safety  during  the  French  Revolution.  Meagher  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  this  committee,  the  other  mem- 
bers being  John  Dillon,  Richard  O'Gorman,  Thomas 
D.  McGee  and  Thomas  D.  Reilly.  The  revolution  at 
this  juncture  seemed  a  certainty  and  the  spirits  of  the 
leaders  ran  high  with  joyous  anticipation.  But  alas, 
the  committee  was  destined  never  to  meet ! 

Immediately  after  its  organization  O'Gorman  left 
for  Limerick  to  take  charge  of  the  movement  there, 
and  a  little  later  the  tip  was  passed  on  to  the  leaders 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER        357 

still  lingering  in  Dublin  of  the  intention  of  the  govern- 
ment to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  Con- 
fronted with  this  ominous  danger,  Meagher,  McGee 
and  Dillon  held  a  hurried  meeting  in  the  council  room 
and  an  emissary  was  despatched  to  Paris  to  plead  for 
intervention,  another  was  sent  to  Belfast  and  thence 
to  Glasgow,  where  at  the  proper  moment  he  was  to 
arouse  the  Irish  there  and  lead  them  against  the  troops 
stationed  in  that  city.  This  accomplished,  Meagher 
spread  out  the  map  of  Ireland  and  entered  into  a  con- 
ference with  Halpin,  the  secretary  of  the  Confedera- 
tion, who  was  instructed  to  communicate  at  once  with 
the  officers  of  the  clubs  of  the  capital  and  direct  them 
to  be  ready  to  rise  and  barricade  the  streets  the  mo- 
ment the  news  was  received  that  the  leaders  were  in 
the  field. 

Owing  to  the  absence  of  war  vessels  and  its  prox- 
imity to  the  fighting  counties  of  Wexford,  Waterford 
and  Tipperary  it  was  agreed  that  the  insurrection 
should  be  launched  in  Kilkenny.  Another  reason  for 
the  selection  was  that  Kilkenny  was  on  the  eve  of  its 
annual  cattle  show  and  it  was  thought  that  in  the 
event  of  a  siege  the  possession  of  the  cattle  would  be 
an  item  worth  considering. 

The  news  spread  rapidly  that  the  leaders  of  Young 
Ireland  were  in  the  field  and  the  militant  young  pa- 
triots of  Dublin  awaited  expectantly  and  eagerly  the 
instructions  that  never  came.  They  had  been  told  to 
await  the  orders  of  their  leaders  and  no  orders  wxre 
received.  Halpin  had  not  understood  the  instructions 
given  him  by  Meagher.  The  weapons  remained  con- 
cealed. The  pikes,  purchased  and  preserved  for  the 
patriots'  hour,  were  never  used. 


358  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

Meanwhile  the  leaders  in  the  field  were  battling 
against  disheartening  odds.  Smith  O'Brien  was  at 
Carrick,  where  the  entire  country  was  aglow  with  rev- 
olutionary heat  and  the  people  were  clamoring  to  be 
led,  when  an  element  of  discord  was  injected  into  the 
situation.  The  precise  source  of  this  discordant  note 
may  never  be  known.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  traitors 
to  the  cause  of  the  nation  succeeded  in  persuading  the 
people  that  Carrick  alone  would  be  expected  to  grapple 
with  the  government  and  that  the  annihilation  of  the 
town  and  its  people  would  be  the  inevitable  result.  So 
pronounced  did  this  feeling  become  that  it  was  consid- 
ered a  concession  when  the  leaders  were  granted  per- 
mission to  remain  in  the  town  overnight.  Word  was 
then  sent  out  at  once  to  all  the  clubs  of  the  neighboring 
towns  to  meet  at  Carrick  on  the  morrow. 

With  this  understanding  Meagher  set  out  in  the 
night  for  Waterford  with  the  intention  of  placing 
himself  at  the  head  of  one  thousand  sturdy  fighting 
men  who  had  pledged  themselves  to  be  ready  to  follow 
him  in  any  enterprise  at  the  slightest  notice.  Reaching 
his  native  city  he  sent  for  his  leaders.  To  his  chagrin 
he  was  informed  that  they  could  not  accompany  him 
back  to  Carrick  without  the  consent  of  Father  Tracy, 
who  had  been  instrumental  in  their  organization.  The 
perplexed  leader  hurriedly  scoured  the  city  in  search 
of  the  priest,  but  he  was  not  found,  and  finally,  in  dis- 
couragement and  despair,  Meagher  turned  his  back 
upon  the  town  of  his  nativity,  and  the  great  majority 
of  his  men  never  knew  that  he  had  called  upon  them 
in  the  crisis  and  called  in  vain. 

It  was  thus  that  the  insurrection  failed.     A  succc: 
sion  of  unexplainable  blunders  accounts,  to  some  ex- 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       359 

tent,  for  the  failure  of  the  people  to  rise — Halpin's 
blunder  preventing  the  attack  of  the  Dublin  clubs  upon 
the  Castle,  the  blunder  of  Father  Tracy — if  blunder 
it  was — depriving  Meagher  of  the  one  thousand  men 
upon  whom  he  had  depended  as  the  nucleus  of  his 
army.  That  there  were  some  weaklings  among  the  men 
is  probable  and  that  traitors  abounded  in  the  clubs  and 
among  the  people  is  certain.  The  plans  of  the  insur- 
rectionists miscarried  at  every  turn,  and  the  leaders,  in 
dismay  and  bewilderment,  failing  of  the  support  upon 
which  they  had  reason  to  rely,  separated,  each  to  seek 
as  best  he  might  the  security  of  his  person.  Some 
nought  and  found  the  succor  of  the  sea  and  entered 
upon  a  voluntary  exile,  while  others  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  government  and  faced  the  ignominy  of  the  scaf- 
fold as  so  many  Irish  heroes  had  done  before. 

Among  the  latter  was  Thomas  Francis  Meagher, 
who  was  arrested  at  Rathgannon  on  August  twelfth. 
A  little  more  than  two  months  later  he  was  tried  be- 
fore a  jury  notoriously  packed  at  Clonmel  Court 
House,  where  he  was  doomed  to  die  the  most  cruel  and 
ignominious  death  for  the  crime  of  loving  the  liberty 
of  his  country.  Throughout  this  crisis  he  remained 
worthy  of  his  role  as  one  of  Ireland's  most  exalted. 
Dressed  with  his  customary  neatness  in  a  plain  black 
frock  coat,  black  silk  stock  and  light  colored  waist- 
coat, he  faced  his  accusers  with  dignity  and  firmness ; 
and  when  asked  why  sentence  of  death  should  not  be 
pronounced  he  made  his  famous  last  speech  in  Ireland : 

"I  am  here  to  speak  the  truth,  whatever  it  may  cost 
me,"  he  said.  "I  am  here  to  regret  nothing  I  have  ever 
done — to  retract  nothing  I  have  ever  said.  I  am  here 
to  crave  with  no  lying  lip  the  life  I  consecrate  to  the  lib- 


360  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

erty  of  my  country.  Far  from  it ;  even  here — here  where 
the  thief,  the  hbertine,  the  murderer  have  left  their  foot- 
prints in  the  dust ;  here  on  this  spot,  where  the  shadows 
of  death  surround  me,  and  from  which  I  see  my  early 
grave  in  an  unanointed  soil — encircled  with  these  ter- 
rors, the  hope  which  has  beckoned  me  to  the  perilous 
sea  upon  which  I  have  been  wrecked  still  consoles,  ani- 
mates, enraptures  me." 

Whether  it  was  a  compassion  for  the  youth  of  the 
leaders  of  Young  Ireland,  or  the  warning  of  a  con- 
science because  of  the  infamy  of  their  undoing  must 
remain  to  conjecture,  but  the  death  sentences  were 
changed  to  deportation  for  life,  and  on  July  ninth, 
1849,  Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  one  of  the  most  bril- 
liant ornaments  of  Erin,  was  borne  from  the  scene  of 
his  many  triumphs  and  his  one  great  failure  to  the  dis- 
mal quietude  of  Van  Dieman's  Land. 


VI 


The  story  of  Meagher's  life  in  exile  is  briefly  told. 
To  one  of  his  ardent  and  restless  nature  the  monoto- 
nous humdrum  of  existence  in  the  No-Man's  Land  of 
the  far-away  seas  must  have  been  one  unspeakable 
ennui.  While  in  his  solitude  at  Lake  Sorrel  he  luxuri- 
ated in  yachting  in  a  little  boat  which  he  tenderly 
called  The  Speranza  in  honor  of  one  of  the  fiery  poets 
of  '48.  There  on  the  lake  he  divided  his  time  between 
the  water  and  the  few  books  of  his  attractive  cottage. 
There,  in  the  spring  of  '51,  he  was  married  to  Miss 
Bennett,  the  beautiful  daughter  of  a  farmer  of  the 
locality.  Thence,  in  the  early  winter  of  '52,  he  made 
his  escape,  and,  after  many  exciting  adventures  on  the 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       361 

sea,  he  landed  in  New  York  City — the  land  of  his 
dreams — on  May  twenty-sixth. 

Henceforth  his  story  is  part  of  American  history. 
The  first  nine  years  of  his  life  in  exile  were  devoted  to 
lecturing  and  writing.  His  brilliant  and  picturesque 
eloquence  and  the  interest  felt  in  him  as  one  of  the 
apostles  of  liberty  created  a  demand  for  him  upon  the 
platform.  He  appeared  frequently  in  all  the  large  cit- 
ies and  made  a  tour  of  the  newer  western  country, 
where  his  fame  had  spread.  A  year  after  his  arrival 
in  New  York  he  joined  John  Mitchell  in  the  publica- 
tion of  a  new  journal  called  The  Citizen,  which  imme- 
diately took  precedence  over  all  other  papers  dedicated 
to  the  cause  of  liberty  in  Ireland.  In  1858  he  made  a 
tour  of  Central  America  for  Harper's  Magazine, 
writing  a  series  of  articles  on  Holidays  in  Costa 
Rico  that  possess  a  magic  charm,  although  they  have 
never  been  printed  in  book  form.  And  then  came  the 
assault  on  Fort  Sumter — and  the  American  Republic 
was  torn  by  cruel  strife.  The  brilliant  dashing  part 
played  by  Meagher  as  the  commander  of  the  Irish 
Brigade  must  be  read  in  the  hero  tales  of  American  his- 
tory. The  marvelous  charge  of  Meagher's  men  with  a 
green  sprig  in  their  caps  at  Fredericksburg  is  one  of 
the  most  stirring  military  movements  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  He  surrendered  his  commission  when  the 
last  of  his  brave  men  were  gone — the  victims  of  their 
valor. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  appointed  secretary 
of  the  territory  of  Montana  by  President  Johnson  and 
he  set  to  work  to  rid  the  territory  of  the  political  cor- 
ruptionists  who  then  infested  it.  Unhappily  he  did  not 
live  to  carry  out  his  plans.    While  on  one  of  his  tours 


362  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

of  inspection  he  fell  from  a  boat  into  the  swift  current 
of  the  Missouri  River  near  Fort  Benton  and  his  body 
was  never  recovered.  Thus  it  was,  that  Thomas  Fran- 
cis Meagher,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  heroic  char- 
acters in  the  calendar  of  time,  died  on  July  first,  1867. 

Of  Meagher  it  may  be  truly  said  that  his  entire  life 
was  dedicated  to  the  cause  of  liberty.  Wherever  he 
was  placed  he  found  work  to  do,  and  he  possessed  the 
genius  to  meet  his  obligations.  His  speech  on  the 
sword  alone  entitles  him  to  a  high  place  among  the 
orators  of  his  century.  His  relations  to  the  rising  of 
'48  would  alone  make  him  a  treasured  memory  where- 
ever  freedom  has  a  worshiper.  His  superb  gallantry 
at  Fredericksburg  alone  would  assure  him  a  place  in 
history  as  among  the  bravest  of  the  brave. 

Orator,  protagonist,  soldier,  dreamer  and  doer, 
Thomas  Francis  Meagher  will  live  in  the  affection  of 
his  race  as  long  as  the  green  hills  of  old  Ireland  loom 
above  the  waves. 


VII 


Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  unlike  several  of  the 
great  Irish  orators,  was  bountifully  blessed  by  nature, 
and  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  platform.  Presenting  an 
impressive  appearance,  his  slender  and  compact  form 
of  graceful  mien,  not  a  little  was  contributed  to  the 
thrilling  effects  he  produced  by  the  flash  of  his  Celtic 
eye,  and  the  rare  melody  of  his  musical  voice.  It 
would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  his  art  was  not  a 
studied  one,  that  it  was  wholly  spontaneous.  While 
naturally  gifted  with  a  sense  of  the  dramatic,  he  so 
thoroughly  appreciated  the  value  of  the  theatrical  in 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       363 

appealing  to  a  mass  of  men  that  he  sought  and  found 
the  opportunity  to  utilize  it  in  his  art.  H  we  are  to 
credit  the  records  that  have  come  down  from  those 
who  often  heard  him  in  the  heyday  of  his  power  he  was 
marvelously  expressive  in  gesture.  Added  to  these  ac- 
quired advantages,  he  had  the  oratorical  temperament 
and  he  spoke  with  a  fire  that  was  convincing  as  to  the 
intensity  of  his  convictions.  In  other  words,  his  hear- 
ers always  knew  that  there  was  a  mind  and  heart  and 
soul  behind  the  burning  and  poetic  words  that  flowed 
with  such  wonderful  fluency  from  his  lips.  No  one  has 
ever  known  better  the  human  heart,  and  he  played  upon 
it  like  the  master  that  he  was.  Perhaps  the  predom- 
inant phase  of  his  oratory  was  its  tremendous  intensity. 
This  may  be  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  fact  that 
he  was  always  addressing  his  fellow  men  upon  the 
most  serious  of  subjects — their  liberties,  their  rights. 
In  the  days  of  '48  there  was  little  occasion  for  the 
lighter  touches  of  oratorical  entertainment.  After  his 
dramatic  arrest  and  return  to  Dublin,  when  the  multi- 
tude, after  he  had  given  bond,  accompanied  him  to  his 
hotel,  he  permitted  himself  an  indulgence  in  some  hu- 
morous references  to  his  "military  escort"  and  his  in- 
ability to  establish  fraternal  relations  with  the  soldiery, 
but  with  this  exception,  his  speeches  are  singularly 
without  humor.  That  this  absence  of  wit  and  humor 
was  premeditated  may  properly  be  deduced  from  the 
fact  that  he  was  exquisitely  witty  in  conversation,  and 
possessed  to  a  high  degree  the  sense  of  humor.  The 
wrongs  he  fought  impressed  him  as  too  serious  for 
laughter  and  he  attacked  the  enemy  with  his  heavy 
artillery. 

He  was  a  master  of  denunciation,  endowed  with  a 


364  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

vast  vocabulary  of  invective,  and  he  knew  how  to  make 
a  terrific  arraignment  as  well  as  any  man  in  the  history 
of  Ireland.  The  passages  smacking  of  his  philippic 
were  visually  brief,  but  concise  and  comprehensive  and 
all  the  more  intense  on  that  account.  Take  for  ex- 
ample his  denunciation  of  the  English  lords  in  his 
speech  on  The  Growth  of  the  National  Spirit : 

"Those  English  lords  who  never  trod  on  Irish  soil — 
who  know  not  the  afflictions  of  the  people  whose  charac- 
ter they  defame — who  never  sympathized  with  those 
whom  they  would  now  coerce;  those  English  lords,  in 
whose  pictured  galleries  we  would  vainly  search  for  the 
stricken  image  of  an  Irish  peasant,  and  on  whose  dam- 
asked tables  the  Irish  famine  will  not  cast  its  scaring 
shadow ;  those  English  lords  to  whom  the  Irish  millions, 
on  the  day  of  retribution,  will  address  the  words  of  sa- 
cred accusation,  'We  were  naked  and  you  clothed  us  not  ; 
we  were  hungry  and  you  gave  us  not  bread ;  we  were 
thirsty  and  you  gave  us  not  drink ;'  those  English  lords, 
at  this  day,  renew  the  enactments  that  have  long  since 
brought  down  upon  the  English  supremacy  the  curse  of 
the  Irish  province." 

One  of  the  most  vicious  and  telling  of  his  philippics 
followed  the  imprisonment  of  O'Brien  by  the  English 
house  of  commons  in  an  address  at  a  mass  meeting  in 
Dublin: 

"Till  now  I  have  thought  it  was  unEngllsh  to  strike 
a  man  when  he  was  down.  Till  now  I  thought  that, 
whether  in  the  grave  or  in  the  prison,  the  foe  of  Eng- 
land was  safe  from  insult.  Till  now,  I  thought  the  van- 
quished ever  claimed  her  sympathy,  and  that,  in  the  flush 
of  her  triumph,  her  spirit  was  great,  because  it  was  for- 
bearing. 

"Sir,  the  conduct  of  England  in  this  instance  does  not 


JHOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER       365 

remind  me  of  that  country  which  an  old  history  of  some 
centuries  has  taught  me  to  admire.  It  does  not  remind 
me  of  that  England,  with  the  arms  and  letters  of  which 
the  names  of  the  Alfreds,  the  Edwards,  the  Russells,  the 
Miltons  and  the  Hampdens  are  associated.  It  does  not 
remind  me  of  that  England  by  whose  sword  Spain  was 
rescued  and  Portugal  was  set  free.  It  does  not  remind 
me  of  that  England  whose  guns  at  Navarino  gave  suc- 
cor to  the  Greek,  and  on  whose  soil  the  Polish  insurrec- 
tionist has  found  a  refuge.  But  I  am  reminded  of  that 
England  whose  flag  was  planted  in  this  country  by  a 
Wentworth,  a  Carhampton,  a  Ludlow  and  a  Cromwell 
— that  flag  in  which  the  dead  liberties  of  our  country, 
as  in  a  reel  shroud,  have  been  bound  up.  I  am  reminded 
of  that  England  whose  assassin-blade  massacred  at  Mul- 
laghmast,  and  whose  traitor  heart  broke  faith  at  Limer- 
ick. I  am  reminded  of  that  England  by  whom  the  Irish 
noble  has  been  dishonored  and  the  Irish  peasant  has  been 
starved." 


To  appreciate  the  genius  of  Meagher,  however,  it 
is  necessary  to  go  beyond  his  passages  of  fierce  ar- 
raignment. There  have  been  others  quite  as  adept  in 
this  field  of  Irish  oratory,  and  perhaps  more  so,  but 
few  of  these  have  coupled  with  the  power  to  denounce, 
the  capacity  to  appeal  to  the  imagination  and  the 
senses  in  sentences  of  lyrical  beauty.  In  this  latter  art 
none  approach  him  unless  it  be  Curran  and  Sheil — the 
latter  being  the  favorite  master  of  Meagher.  If  he 
had  not  dedicated  his  life  to  the  cause  of  liberty  and 
adopted  oratory  as  the  weapon,  he  might  have  been  a 
musician  or  a  poet.  He  had  a  remarkable  sense  of 
rhythm,  a  vivid  imagination,  making  it  natural  for  him 
to  teach  through  pictures  of  rare  coloring.  His  word 
pictures  are  prose  poems — literary  gems,  albeit  the  very 
exuberance  of  his  fancy  sometimes  led  him  into  er- 


366  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

rors  in  taste.  His  apostrophe  to  the  sword,  however, 
has  a  fine  Hterary  tone  which  appeals  to  the  most  fas- 
tidious critics.  It  is  as  lyrical  as  song.  Suggestive  of 
this  apostrophe  is  another  passage  of  splendid  beauty: 

"By  the  soft  blue  waters  of  Lake  Lucerne  stands  the 
chapel  of  William  Tell.  On  the  anniversary  of  his  re- 
volt and  victory  across  those  waters,  as  they  glitter  in 
the  July  sun,  skim  the  light  boats  of  the  allied  cantons. 
From  the  prows  hang  the  banners  of  the  republic,  and, 
as  they  near  the  sacred  spot,  the  daughters  of  Lucerne 
chant  the  hymns  of  their  old  poetic  land.  Then  burst 
forth  the  grand  Te  Deum,  and  Heaven  hears  again  the 
voice  of  that  wild  chivalry  of  the  mountains  which,  five 
centuries  since,  pierced  the  white  eagle  of  Vienna  and 
flung  it  bleeding  on  the  rocks  of  Uri. 

"At  Innsbruck,  in  the  black  aisles  of  the  old  cathedrals, 
the  peasant  of  the  Tyrol  kneels  before  the  statue  of  An- 
dreas Hofer.  In  the  defiles  and  valleys  of  the  Tyrol, 
who  forgets  the  day  on  which  he  fell  before  the  walls 
of  Mantua  ?  It  is  a  festive  day  all  through  his  quiet  no- 
ble land.  In  the  old  cathedral  his  inspiring  rnemory  is 
recalled  amid  the  pageantry  of  the  altar,  his  image  ap- 
pears in  every  house,  his  victories  and  virtue  are  pro- 
claimed in  the  songs  of  the  people,  and  when  the  sun 
goes  down  a  chain  of  fires,  in  the  deep  red  light  of  which 
the  eagle  spreads  his  wings  and  holds  his  giddy  revelry, 
proclaims  the  glory  of  the  chief  whose  blood  has  made 
his  native  land  a  sainted  spot  in  Europe. 

"Sir,  shall  we  not  join  in  this  glorious  worship  and 
here,  in  this  island,  anointed  by  the  blood  of  many  a 
good  and  gallant  man,  shall  we  not  have  the  faith,  the 
duties,  the  festivities  of  patriotism?" 

Surely  no  one  but  one  imbued  with  poetic  fire  could 
have  painted  that  picture,  almost  religious  in  its  appeal. 
It  was  introduced  almost  as  a  diversion  in  the  midst 
of  a  speech  of  argument  and  denunciation,  lulling  and 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER        367 

soothing  for  a  moment  the  senses  of  the  hearers,  until 
the  closing  sentences  showed  that  it  had  a  practical  pur- 
pose. This  was  a  trick  for  which  ]\Ieagher  had  a 
fondness,  and  is  again  found  in  the  midst  of  his  speech 
on  The  Irish  Confederation: 

"Yes,  the  spirit  that  nerved  the  Red  Hand  of  Ulster 
— the  spirit  that  made  the  walls  of  Limerick  impregnable 
and  forced  the  conquerors  of  the  Boyne  to  negotiate  by 
the  waters  of  the  Shannon — the  spirit  that  dictated  the 
letters  of  Swift  and  the  instructions  of  Lucas — the  spirit 
that  summoned  the  armed  missionaries  of  freedom  to 
the  altar  of  Dungannon  and  gave  to  Charlemont  a  dig- 
nity his  accomplishments  would  never  have  attained — 
the  spirit  that  touched  with  fire  the  tongue  of  Grattan 
and  made  the  lyre  of  Moore  vibrate  through  the  world 
— the  spirit  that  called  forth  the  genius  of  Davis  from 
the  cloisters  of  okl  Trinity  and  which  consecrates  his 
grave — the  spirit  that  at  this  day  in  the  city  of  the  Pontiff 
unfurls  the  flag  of  Sarsfield  and  animates  the  Irish  sculp- 
tor as  he  bids  the  marble  speak  the  passion  of  the  Irish 
Tribune — this  spirit,  which  the  bayonet  could  not  drive 
back,  which  the  bribe  could  not  satiate,  which  misfortune 
could  not  quell,  is  moving  vividly  through  the  land.  The 
ruins  that  ennoble,  the  scenes  that  beautify,  the  memories 
that  illuminate,  the  music  that  inspires  our  native  land, 
have  preserved  it  pure  amidst  the  vicious  factions  of  the 
past  and  the  venal  bargains  of  later  years.  The  visita- 
tion that  now  storms  upon  the  land  has  startled  it  into  a 
generous  activity.  Did  public  virtue  cease  to  animate, 
the  senate  house,  which  even  in  its  desecrated  state  lends 
an  Italian  glory  to  this  metropolis,  would  forbid  it  to 
expire.  The  temple  is  there — the  creed  has  been  an- 
nounced— the  priests  will  enter  and  officiate.  It  shall  be 
so.  The  spirit  of  nationality,  rooted  in  our  hearts,  is  as 
immovable  as  the  altar  of  the  Druid,  pillared  in  our  soil." 

In  view  of  the  imas^inative  character  and  the  senti- 


368  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

mentality  of  the  Celt,  the  effect  of  such  beautiful  pic- 
tures and  memories  can  readily  be  understood.  His 
pictures,  at  their  best,  were  merely  meant  to  illustrate 
an  argument.  He  appealed  to  the  masses  as  Rienzi 
did,  only  he  used  words  where  the  Italian  tribune  re- 
sorted to  canvas. 

Like  all  great  agitators  and  protagonists  w^th  a 
righteous  cause,  who  are  confronted  with  the  apathy 
or  indifference  of  the  people,  he  resorted  to  the  elec- 
tric shock  of  withering  them  with  scorn  to  galvanize 
them  into  action.  Very  seldom  did  he  flatter  his  au- 
dience. His  purpose  was  not  to  contribute  to  their 
complacency  but  to  plant  within  them  the  seed  of  dis- 
satisfaction, and  this  he  did  by  interjecting  into  his 
speeches  the  most  caustic  comment  upon  their  condi- 
tion. An  example  of  his  method  in  this  direction  may 
be  cited  from  his  speech  on  the  husting  during  the 
Galway  election  in  1846: 

"Will  you  vilely  verify  the  anticipations  of  Chesham 
Place?  Will  you  basely  authenticate  the  predictions  of 
the  Castle?  Renounced  by  Cashel,  threatened  by  Wex- 
ford, supplanted  in  Dundalk,  routed  from  Mayo,  what — 
shall  the  refugees  of  Whiggery  find  in  Galway  a  spot 
where,  at  last,  the  gold  of  the  cabinet  will  contaminate 
the  virtue  of  the  people  ? 

"The  eyes  of  Europe  are  upon  you.  This  is  the  cant 
of  every  husting.  But  this  I  tell  you:  THERE  ARE 
A  FEW  MEN  YET  BREATHING  IN  SKIBBER- 
EEN  AND  THEIR  DEATH  GLANCE  IS  UPON 
YOU.  Vote  for  the  Whig  candidate  AND  THEIR 
LAST  SHRIEK  WILL  PROCLAIM  THAT  YOU 
HAVE  VOTED  FOR  THE  PENSIONED  MISERS 
WHO  REFUSED  THEM  BREAD. 

"There  is  a  place,  too,  called  Skull,  in  the  county  of 
Cork,  the  churchyard  of  which  place,  as  a  tenant  told 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER        369 

his  landlord  the  other  day,  is  the  only  'red  field'  in  the 
wide,  wide  county.  There  are  eyes  wild  with  the  agony 
of  hunger  looking  out  from  that  fell  spot  upon  you,  and 
if  you  vote  against  your  native  land,  THE  BURNING 
TONGUE  OF  THE  STARVING  PEASANT  WILL 
FROTH  ITS  CURSE  UPON  YOU  AND  YOUR 
CHILDREN." 

One  of  his  most  crushing  criticisms  of  his  own  peo- 
ple is  to  be  found  in  his  speech  on  The  Spirit  of  the 
North,  delivered  at  Belfast.  In  this  speech  he  shamed 
the  people  with  a  striking  contrast,  setting  off  the 
people  of  Switzerland  against  the  people  of  Ireland. 
After  relating  the  limited  resources,  the  natural  dis- 
advantages of  the  little  republic  of  the  Alps,  and  pictur- 
ing their  splendid  and  triumphant  emergence  from  their 
dif^culties  by  virtue  of  their  courage,  determination 
and  independence,  he  turned  upon  his  audience : 

"And  you — you  who  are  eight  million  strong — you  who 
boast  at  every  meeting  that  this  island  is  the  finest  that 
the  sun  looks  down  upon — you  who  have  no  threatening 
sea  to  stem,  no  avalanche  to  dread — you  who  say  that 
you  could  shield  along  your  coast  a  thousand  sail,  and 
be  the  princes  of  a  mighty  commerce — you  who  by  the 
magic  of  an  honest  hand  beneath  each  summer  sky  might 
cull  a  plenteous  harvest  from  your  soil,  and  with  the 
sickle  strike  away  the  scythe  of  death — you  who  have 
no  vulgar  history  to  read — you  w^ho  can  trace  from  field 
to  field  the  evidence  of  a  civilization  older  than  the  con- 
quest, the  relics  of  a  religion  more  ancient  than  the  gos- 
pel— ^you  who  have  thus  been  blessed,  thus  been  gifted, 
thus  been  prompted  to  what  is  wise  and  generous  and 
great — you  will  make  no  effort — you  will  whine  and  beg 
and  skulk,  in  sores  and  rags,  upon  this  favored  land — 
you  will  congregate  in  drowsy  councils  and,  when  the 
very  earth  is  loosening  beneath  your  feet,  respectfully 


370  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

suggest  new  clauses  and  amendments  to  some  blundering 
bill — you  will  strike  the  poor  rate,  aye,  fifteen  shillings 
to  the  pound — you  will  mortgage  the  last  acre  of  your 
estates — you  will  bid  a  prosperous  voyage  to  your  last 
grain  of  corn — you  will  be  beggared  by  the  million — you 
will  perish  by  the  thousand — and  the  finest  island  that  the 
sun  looks  down  upon,  amid  the  jeers  and  hootings  of  the 
world,  will  blacken  into  a  plague  spot,  a  wilderness,  a 
sepulcher.  God  of  Heaven,  shall  these  things  come  to 
pass?  What  say  you,  yeomen  of  the  north?  Has  the 
Red  Hand  withered?" 


Sometimes  he  found  in  history  something  to  inspire 
the  Irish  heart  and  animate  Irish  pride  and  awaken 
Irish  hope.    Speaking  at  Cork  he  said : 

"A  French  historian  has  written  that,  after  the  ter- 
rible eruption  of  Vesuvius  in  1794,  which  swept  away 
villages  and  flocks,  and  palaces  and  vineyards,  the 
olive  trees  that  grew  at  the  base  of  the  mountain 
were  found,  amidst  the  wilderness  of  ashes,  fresh 
and  green  and  vigorous.  Thus,  after  the  visitation 
which  through  the  cold  bleak  winter  swept  across  the 
island,  strewing  the  fields  v/ith  thousands  of  our  people, 
where  the  previous  harvest  a  few  weeks  before  waved 
and  glittered  like  a  golden  banner — spreading  desolation 
from  the  hills  of  Innishowen  to  the  shore  of  Bantry, 
ghastlier  than  that  with  which  the  swarthy  Sythian,  rush- 
ing from  the  black  shores  of  the  Danube,  scourged  the 
plains  of  Lombardy — ghastlier  than  that  through  which 
the  fiery  Schismatic  of  Arabia,  propagating  his  dazzling 
and  voluptuous  gospel,  burned  his  way  from  the  valley 
of  Zeder  to  the  gates  of  Mecca — ghastlier  than  that  which 
the  Venetian  renegade  gazed  upon  by  Lepanto's  gulf 
when  he  watched — ■ 

*'  * — the  lean  dogs  beneath  the  wall 

Hold  o'er  the  dead  their  carnival' 

— thus,  after  this  tremendous  visitation,  which  men  had 


THOMAS    FRANCIS    MEAGHER        371 

said  would  sink  this  country  in  despair,  the  fine  old  spirit 
is  found  still  living  in  the  land — pure,  active,  brilliant — 
brighter  from  the  torture  through  which  it  passed — 
stronger  from  the  calamity  with  which  it  struggled. 
Thus,  Sir,  we  find  that  the  heart  of  Ireland  is  proof 
against  the  worst." 

His  historic  view  of  the  consummation  of  the  union, 
incorporated  in  an  address  before  the  Grattan  Club,  is 
suggestive  of  some  of  the  finest  descriptive  passages  of 
Macaulay — a  word  picture  that  might  w^ell  have  been 
written  by  the  pen  that  painted  the  scene  at  the  im- 
peachment of  Warren  Hastings : 

"A  night,  darker  than  that  which  fell  upon  the  land 
of  Egypt  when  the  Israelite  stretched  forth  his  hand  to 
Heaven  and  no  man  knew  his  brother,  came  quickly 
down.  Yet  high  above  the  senate  house  the  star  still 
shone,  keeping  there  its  appointed  watch,  looking  down 
upon  the  island  of  whose  deliverance  it  had  been  the 
herald,  'faithful  to  her  freedom,  faithful  to  her  fall/ 

"In  that  hall  where,  in  the  presence  of  the  students  of 
her  ancient  university,  in  the  presence  of  the  peers  and 
peeresses  of  the  kingdom,  the  Irish  Commoners,  with 
swords  upon  their  thighs,  had  pledged  their  fortunes  and 
their  lives  that  no  English  laws  should  be  obeyed  in  Ire- 
land— the  solemn  oath,  the  splendid  ceremony,  the  faith, 
the  chivalry,  the  genius  of  the  revolution,  were  that  night 
forsworn. 

"Noble  and  learned  highwaymen  called  ministers — 
right  honorable  and  learned  slaves,  barristers  and  red- 
coats by  profession,  perjurers  by  trade — these  with  a 
retinue  of  ayes  amongst  them — when  the  senate  house 
was  sacked  a  heap  of  coronets  and  borough  prices  would 
be  parceled  out — these  criminals  entered  there  that  night 
to  do  the  work  of  conquest,  and  they  did  it  with  impunity. 
An  English  regiment  lined  the  colonnade — Napper  Tandy 
was  in  exile — the  guns  of  the  Leinster  Volunteers  were 


372  THE    IRISH    ORATORS    ' 

spiked — Wolfe  Tone  had  bled  to  death  in  shackles — in 
vain  did  Curran,  leaning  against  one  of  the  stately  pillars 
of  the  portico,  ask  the  *reber  who  stood  beside  him — 
'Where  now  are  your  one  hundred  thousand  men  ?'  " 

The  fondness  for  the  surprise  stinger  at  the  end  of  a 
period  is  manifested  in  numerous  passages,  as  in  his 
picture  of  the  little  stream  of  corruption  that  is  al- 
ways dropping  through  the  Castle  yards,  and  in  elec- 
tion times  has  an  extraordinary  spring  tide,  widening 
and  deepening,  rushing  rapidly,  sweeping  away  the 
votes  of  the  people,  and  finally  "throw^ing  up  a  Whig 
official  upon  the  white  shore  of  England."  As  in  a 
passage  in  the  speech  at  the  complimentary  banquet  to 
an  American  sea  captain  who  had  brought  a  boat  load 
of  provisions  for  the  starving  of  Ireland,  in  which  the 
orator  suggests  the  question  of  the  stranger  as  to  the 
reason  for  the  high  festival  in  the  midst  of  desolation 
and  death,  and  answers  it:  "Sir,  the  citizens  of  Dub- 
lin have  met  to  pay  a  compliment  to  a  plain  citizen  of 
America,  which  they  would  not  pay,  no,  not  for  all  the 
gold  of  Venice — to  the  minister  of  England." 

The  passion  of  Meagher,  his  rapid-fire  method  of 
attack,  his  exceptional  capacity  for  condensation,  his 
extraordinary  ability  to  paint  a  picture,  to  find  an  il- 
luminating analogy,  to  draw  an  indictment,  to  run  the 
gamut  of  emotions,  to  coin  a  phrase,  to  crucify  with  a 
characterization,  make  him  unique  even  among  the 
Irish  orators.  Added  to  this,  his  wonderful  vocabulary, 
his  mastery  of  the  music  of  words,  the  exalted  lyrical 
quality  of  his  finest  passages,  impart  to  his  speeches  a 
literary  tone  that  is  lacking  in  some  of  Ireland's  more 
virile  orators. 


yiii 

ISAAC  BUTT 

The  Long  Lean  Years ;  the  Fenian  Brotherhood ;  the  Amnesty 

Association;  the  Organization  and  Early  Days  of 

the  Home-Rule  Movement 

THE  period  intervening  between  the  downfall  of 
the  Young  Ireland  movement  and  the  appearance 
of  the  Parnell  movement  was  one  of  the  most  dismal 
and  discouraging  in  the  history  of  the  long  war  for 
legislative  independence.  The  fate  that  befell  O'Con- 
nell's  plan  for  a  constitutional  agitation  for  the  repeal 
of  the  union  had  discredited  constitutionalism  in  the 
minds  of  the  masses;  and  the  ease  with  which  the  up- 
rising of  '48  was  put  down  disclosed  the  difficulty  of 
accomplishing  anything  by  force  of  arms.  The  only 
spectacular  feature  of  these  long  lean  years  was  the 
Fenian  movement,  and  it,  too,  was  suppressed  with  an 
iron  hand.  Aside  from  the  Manchester  martyrs,  the 
popular  imagination  was  not  fired  to  any  appreciable 
degree  by  any  great  popular  leader. 

And  yet  there  was  a  leader  whose  political  and  pro- 
fessional activities  linked  Young  Ireland  with  Par- 
nellism — a  leader  more  practical  than  Meagher  and  in- 
finitely more  eloquent  than  Parnell.  He  stood  beside 
Smith  O'Brien  as  he  received  the  brutal  sentence  of  the 
court.  He  battled  for  four  years,  with  a  courage  al- 
most equal  to  that  of  Cur  ran,  to  save  the  unfortunates 

373 


374  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

who  were  caught  in  the  dragnet  of  Fenlanlsm.  Indeed, 
the  brilliancy,  the  eloquence,  the  courage  and  capacity 
he  exhibited  in  defense  of  his  Fenian  clients  can  only 
be  compared  with  the  efforts  of  Curran  in  defense  of 
the  victims  of  '98.  And  he  went  further  than  Curran 
— he  followed  and  fought  for  his  clients  after  the 
prison  doors  had  clanged  upon  them.  In  behalf  of  Erin 
he  capitalized  their  conviction.  He  aroused  and  or- 
ganized the  country  to  a  united  and  determined  effort 
to  obtain  their  release.  And  when  he  had  awakened 
the  people  from  their  timid  lethargy  through  the  ac- 
tivities of  the  Amnesty  Association  he  had  conceived, 
he  directed  his  attention  to  the  perfection  of  a  political 
organization  to  continue  the  fight  for  the  restoration 
of  a  parliament  in  College  Green. 

The  word  "Home  Rule"  was  given  to  the  vocabulary 
of  British  politics  by  Isaac  Butt. 

The  few  years  during  which  he  led  the  Home-Rule 
party  in  the  house  of  commons  were  not  prolific  of  re- 
sults. He  modeled  with  faulty  clay — the  best  availa- 
ble from  his  resources.  But  he  did  create  a  party,  he 
did  revive  a  drooping  hope,  he  did  compel  the  English 
statesmen  to  reckon  again  with  Ireland,  and  he  did  go 
ahead  through  the  seeming  wilderness,  facing  and 
fighting  the  battle  of  the  pioneer,  to  blaze  the  path  the 
more  militant  Parnell  was  to  tread  to  more  spectacular 
triumphs. 

Brilliant,  brainy,  lovable — a  charming  character,  an 
entertaining  genius,  a  pure  patriot,  a  politician  and  a 
gentleman — Isaac  Butt  performed  the  thankless  task 
of  leading  a  forlorn  hope  and  paid  the  penalty  of  his 
failure  with  a  broken  heart.  But  as  the  years  have 
gone  and  men  have  looked  back  upon  the  splendid  pre- 


ISAAC    BUTT  375 

paratory  work  he  did,  the  impression  has  grown  that 
among  the  great  and  brilHant  men  of  Ireland,  none  is 
more  richly  deserving  of  the  gratitude  and  remem- 
brance of  the  little  green  isle  than  Isaac  Butt. 


There  was  little  in  the  early  environment  or  educa- 
tion of  Isaac  Butt  to  give  promise  of  the  splendid  spirit 
of  nationality  which  dominated  the  latter  years  of  his 
life.  He  was  born  in  Ulster — in  the  home  of  a  Pres- 
byterian minister.  He  first  looked  out  upon  the  world 
from  the  village  of  Glenfin  on  September  sixth,  1813. 
His  early  years  were  spent  near  the  Gap  of  Barnes- 
more,  a  line  of  hills,  picturesque  and  beautiful,  albeit 
draped  in  shadows.  Upon  these  hills  the  boy  was  wont 
to  look  and  dream,  and  it  was  under  the  inspiration  of 
their  mystery  that  his  imagination,  which  always  im- 
parted something  of  poetry  to  his  temperament,  was 
developed.  His  father  appears  to  have  been  a  prosy 
type  of  preacher,  in  no  sense  inspirational.  His  mother, 
however,  was  a  woman  of  rare  mentality  and  original- 
ity, clever  as  a  conversationalist,  and  highly  imag- 
inative, and  it  was  from  her  that  Isaac  Butt  inherited 
his  genius. 

Of  his  early  education  we  know  little  beyond  the  fact 
that  he  studied  at  the  Royal  School,  Raphoe,  and  en- 
tered Trinity  College  in  1832.  Here  his  genius  flow- 
ered, and  he  entered  upon  a  career  which  has  prob- 
ably never  been  surpassed,  if  equaled,  in  the  history  of 
that  venerable  institution.  In  1835  he  took  his  first 
degree,  and  one  year  later  he  became  a  LL.B.  In  1840 
he  became  an  M.  A.  and  a  LL.D.    And  while  he  was 


376  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

taking  these  degrees  he  was  not  burying  himself  com- 
pletely in  the  text-books,  but  was  feverishly  active  out- 
side the  curriculum.  It  was  while  he  was  a  student  at 
Trinity  that  he  published  a  translation  of  the 
"Georgics"  of  Virgil  and  other  classics.  While  still 
an  undergraduate  he  founded  the  Dublin  University 
Magadne,  and,  while  acting  as  editor,  wrote  copiously 
on  political  and  economic  subjects  and  found  the  time 
to  contribute  the  series  of  graceful  and  pensive  stories 
under  the  title  of  Chapters  of  College  Romance.  Nor 
did  this  limit  his  college  activities.  He  plunged  with 
eagerness  into  the  work  of  the  famous  Historical  So- 
ciety which  has  played  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  ora- 
torical development  of  so  many  of  the  subjects  treated 
in  this  book.  Devoting  himself  with  remarkable  as- 
siduity to  the  development  of  an  oratorical  style,  par- 
ticipating with  exceptional  brilliancy  in  the  debates, 
he  almost  immediately  took  first  rank  among  the  stu- 
dents. 

That  he  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the  fac- 
ulty may  be  properly  deduced  from  his  appointment 
to  the  professorship  of  political  economy  in  1836 — ^be- 
fore he  had  completed  his  studies — and  he  continued  to 
lecture  during  the  next  five  years.  It  was  during  the 
period  of  his  professorship  that  his  attention  was  first 
directed  to  the  imperative  necessity  of  some  radical 
remedial  legislation  relative  to  the  land.  It  was  the 
custom  of  Parnell,  in  later  years,  to  characterize  his 
predecessor  in  the  leadership  of  the  Irish  party  as 
*Trofessor."  Fortunate  it  was  for  Ireland  that  Butt's 
professorial  duties  directed  his  studies  into  the  channel 
of  land  legislation. 

Meanwhile  he  was  preparing  himself  for  the  practise 


ISAAC   BUTT  377 

of  law,  and  when,  in  1841,  he  severed  his  connection 
both  with  the  college  and  the  magazine  to  concentrate 
his  energies  upon  his  profession,  he  almost  immedi- 
ately found  himself  with  a  large  and  lucrative  cli- 
entele. In  his  thirty-first  year  he  was  made  a  Queen's 
Counsel. 

It  was  during  the  first  years  of  his  practise  that  Butt 
began  to  succumb  to  the  blandishments  of  politics — a 
trade  peculiarly  fascinating  to  the  Irish  temperament, 
and  holding  forth  promise  of  rich  reward  to  one  of  his 
ability  and  political  proclivities.  It  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered that  Butt  entered  politics  as  a  pronounced  re- 
actionary, as  a  champion  of  the  ascendency  and  an 
outspoken  enemy  of  the  project  of  repeal.  He  had  long 
breathed  the  loyal  air  of  Ulster.  He  had  been  nur- 
tured in  an  ultra-conservative  household.  The  leisure 
hours  of  his  Dublin  life  had  been  largely  spent  within 
the  eminently  respectable  and  reactionary  precincts  of 
the  Dublin  Conservative  Society,  which  regularly  met 
in  a  house  in  Dawson  Street  to  direct  a  counter  agita- 
tion against  the  Repeal  Association.  His  friends  and 
af^liations  were  mostly  among  the  gentry,  where  pa- 
triotism was  subordinated  to  self-interest.  His  first 
important  cause  was  confided  to  him  by  the  old  cor- 
poration of  Dublin,  which  sent  him  as  junior  counsel, 
in  1840,  to  plead  their  case  at  the  bar  of  the  house  of 
lords,  and  while  he  failed  to  persuade  that  body  to 
repeal  the  Municipal  Reform  bill,  he  increased  his  rep- 
utation as  a  lawyer  of  resource  and  erudition  and  an 
orator  of  more  than  ordinary  persuasiveness  and 
plausibility. 

Thus  it  was  that  Isaac  Butt  became  the  hope  and 
darling  of  the  Dublin  conservatives — and  thus  came 


378  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

his  selection  by  the  loyalists  in  1843  to  measure  swords 
with  the  great  O'Connell — then  at  the  height  of  his 
power  and  popularity — in  the  great  debate  on  repeal 
before  the  Dublin  Corporation,  which  then  embraced 
many  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  public-spirited  citi- 
zens of  the  capital.  This  historic  encounter  really 
marks  the  introduction  of  Butt  to  the  public  life  of  Ire- 
land. The  debate  revolved  around  the  motion  of 
O'Connell,  "that  a  petition  should  be  presented  to  the 
parliament  from  the  corporation  of  Dublin  for  the  re- 
peal of  the  union."  On  the  day  set  for  the  beginning 
of  the  discussion  the  city  assembly  house  was  besieged 
by  an  excited  throng  seeking  admittance,  but  the  lim- 
ited capacity  of  the  building  had  led  to  the  issuance  of 
tickets  and  the  great  majority  were  compelled  to  con- 
tent themselves  by  lingering  about  the  doors  and  win- 
dows. Within  the  circular  building  in  which  seats  had 
been  specially  arranged,  every  available  inch  of  space 
was  occupied.  The  speech  of  O'Connell  on  this  occa- 
sion was  one  of  the  most  masterful  of  his  career.  He 
was  obsessed  with  the  idea.  His  forty  years  of  agita- 
tion had  been  a  preparation.  He  was  steeped  in  his 
subject.  He  had  viewed  it  from  every  imaginable  an- 
gle. During  the  greater  part  of  a  day  he  let  loose  his 
heavy  artillery.  It  required  the  greatest  temerity  on 
the  part  of  any  one  selected  to  reply. 

And  in  reply  to  the  uncrowned  king,  there  rose  a 
youth  of  thirty  years.  He  had  only  been  a  member  of 
the  bar  for  fivt  years,  and  had  only  severed  his  con- 
nection with  Trinity  two  years  before.  There  was 
nothing  of  prestige  behind  him.  And  there  he  stood, 
facing  the  expectant  crowd  which  looked  upon  him 
with  mingled  commiseration  and  amusement,  a  slen- 


ISAAC   BUTT  379 

der  youth  above  the  average  height,  of  well-propor- 
tioned figure,  and  with  a  plain  face  that  owed  its  pe- 
culiar charm  to  the  perennial  smile  that  played  about 
his  lips  and  beamed  in  his  eye. 

Compared  with  the  masterful  argument  of  O'Con- 
nell,  the  reply  of  Butt  now  seems  pitifully  inadequate, 
but  in  the  day  and  generation  of  the  speech  there  were 
thousands  in  Ireland  who  looked  upon  it  as  convincing, 
and  the  reputation  of  the  young  lawyer  broadened  im- 
measurably by  the  incident.  Opposed  to  the  repeal  of 
the  union,  opposed  to  a  fixed  tenure  for  the  tenants, 
opposed  to  the  abolition  of  tithes,  opposed  to  man- 
hood suffrage,  opposed  to  vote  by  ballot,  the  Isaac 
Butt  of  1843  gave  little  promise  of  ever  developing 
into  the  leader  of  the  popular  movement  for  Irish  in- 
dependence. 


II 


The  following  nine  years  found  Butt  deep  in  the 
practise  of  his  profession,  in  which  he  held  an  exalted 
position,  but  not  so  exclusively  concentrated  as  to  pre- 
vent him  from  contributing  copiously  to  the  conserva- 
tive journals  on  both  sides  of  the  channel.  A  man  of 
scholarly  attainments,  an  entertaining  writer,  his  ar- 
ticles on  political  topics  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
conservative  leaders  of  England  who  had  already 
marked  him  for  cultivation  and  observation.  He  seemed 
to  the  typical  Englishman  of  the  day  a  "possible"  Irish- 
man. If  he  entertained  the  slightest  feeling  against 
the  conquering  nation  he  carefully  concealed  his  feel- 
ing, and  all  he  wrote  or  spoke  could  have  been  uttered 
with  perfect  propriety  and  without  offense  in  the  most 


380  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

exclusive  Tory  drawing-room  of  London.  It  was  in 
these  days  of  prosperity  that  he  fell  a  victim  to  the 
convivial  qualities  that  were  to  wreck  his  peace  of 
mind  and  compromise  his  leadership  when  he  had  at- 
tained a  more  conspicuous  position  in  the  world.  He 
did  not  lack  for  clients.  His  legal  erudition  was  not 
excelled  at  the  Irish  bar.  No  one  surpassed  him  in  the 
art  of  cross-examination.  None  surpassed  him  in 
court  generalship.  Few,  if  any,  equaled  him  in  elo- 
quence. No  one  approached  him  in  his  effect  upon  a 
jury.  Money  came  easily,  and,  with  the  prodigality 
born  of  genius,  he  cast  it  to  the  winds.  William 
O'Brien,  in  his  interesting  Recollections j  throws  a  side 
light  on  his  life  of  this  period  when  he  would  go  down 
to  Cork  to  the  Assizes  to  participate  in  some  great 
cause,  and  after  thrilling  the  court  with  his  splendid 
eloquence  and  subtlety,  would  spend  the  entire  night  at 
the  card  table;  and  then,  after  a  cold  bath,  appear  in 
court  in  the  morning,  without  having  closed  his  eyes, 
and  capable  of  going  through  another  day  with  unim- 
paired powers.  It  was  during  this  period  that  he  per- 
formed his  first  real  service  in  a  patriotic  cause  when 
he  appeared  in  the  defense  of  Smith  O'Brien  and 
Thomas  Francis  Meagher  when  they  were  tried  for 
conspiracy  in  '48.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that 
his  connection  with  these  cases  greatly  altered  his  po- 
litical view-point,  though,  as  we  shall  see  later,  the  al- 
leged crime  and  conviction  of  two  such  men  created 
within  his  mind  a  vague  feeling  of  unrest. 

In  1852  he  was  elected  to  the  imperial  parliament  as 
a  conservative,  and  the  next  thirteen  years  found  him 
leading  a  rollicking  gay  life  in  the  English  capital,  un- 
controlled by  any  great  ambition.    This  was  the  begin- 


F.  B.  Yeats,  R.H.A.  Photograph  by  Geoghegan 

Isaac  Butt 


ISAAC    BUTT  381 

ning  of  his  undoing  as  a  man.  His  parliamentary 
career,  by  interfering  materially  with  his  practise,  ul- 
timately entangled  him  with  innumerable  debts  which 
dogged  him  to  the  end.  It  was  the  day  of  roysterers 
and  wine  bibbers  in  London,  and  Butt's  geniality,  his 
brilliancy,  his  tendency  to  conviviality,  his  love  of  com- 
pany, instantly  led  him  to  joining  the  lively  set.  It 
appears  that,  while  he  consumed  his  full  share  of  wine 
and  brandy,  he  "drank  like  a  gentleman"  and  was 
never  seen  under  the  influence,  but  according  to  T.  P. 
O'Connor,  in  his  Parnell  Movement,  there  were  un- 
pleasant stories  of  wild  bacchanalian  nights,  of  lights 
with  cab  drivers  over  cab  bills,  of  early  morning  visits 
to  the  police  courts. 

William  O'Brien,  in  his  Recollections  (page  133), 
gives  a  sordid  picture  of  the  Butt  of  those  days  stand- 
ing with  his  back  to  one  of  the  statues  in  the  Dublin 
Court,  surrounded  by  a  group  of  admiring  lawyers, 
with  a  greasy  looking  discounter  hovering  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  crowd.  The  brilliant  orator  would  con- 
tinue his  story  undisturbed  by  the  somber  outsider, 
and  then  he  would  be  seen  gliding  away,  slipping  his 
arm  under  that  of  his  "creepy  creditor,"  and  walking 
off  with  him  on  apparent  terms  of  intimacy  and  equal- 
ity. W^e  have  it  on  the  authority  of  O'Connor  that 
he  was  actually  at  one  time  in  a  debtor's  prison. 
Strange,  lovable,  vagabondish  genius,  he  might  have 
found  more  and  better  company  in  the  old  days  when 
Charles  James  Fox  gambled  all  night  at  Brooks,  when 
the  younger  Pitt  drank  inordinately  of  port  until  he 
could  see  "two  speakers,"  and  when  Sheridan  divided 
honors  with  Fox  in  the  deception  of  importunate  cred- 
itors, but  the  days  when  public  men  could  play  fast 


382  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

and  loose  with  morals  without  greatly  impairing  their 
public  usefulness  were  gone.  That  which  people 
laughed  at  in  Fox  and  Sheridan  they  frowned  upon 
in  Butt.  Perhaps  William  O'Brien  has  said  the  kind- 
est thing  that  can  be  said  of  this  feature  of  Butt's 
character : 

"The  errors  of  his  young  days  will  always  be  gently 
judged  in  Ireland,  for  they  were  largely  due  to  that  fond- 
ness for  good-fellowship  and  improvident  generosity 
which  cause  the  countrymen  of  Goldsmith  to  take  a 
greater  pride  in  the  poet's  pension  to  the  landlady  of  his 
garret  in  Green  Arbor  Court  in  his  ragged  and  starving 
days  than  in  his  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey." 

Of  his  career  in  parliament  between  1852  and  1865 
little  need  be  said.  He  was  a  consistent  follower  of 
the  conservatives,  and  during  the  last  great  iight  of 
the  protectionists  in  the  days  of  the  corn  law  agita- 
tion his  eloquence  and  familiarity  with  political  econ- 
omy were  considered  valuable  assets  in  the  losing 
struggle.  His  defeat  in  1865  was  looked  upon  as  a 
happy  event  by  his  real  friends  who  understood  some- 
thing of  his  improvidence  and  financial  difficulties.  It 
was  their  hope  that  he  would  retire  from  public  life 
to  devote  himself  to  the  practise  of  the  profession  his 
genius  adorned.  It  is  a  striking  comment  upon  his 
professional  standing  that  upon  his  return  to  Dublin 
he  was  instantly  overwhelmed  with  briefs.  The  prom- 
ise of  opulence  lay  before  him.  He  immediately  took 
rank  as  the  foremost  lawyer  and  forensic  orator  in 
Ireland.  Had  he  been  content  to  confine  himself 
henceforth  to  the  courts  he  would  doubtless  have 
taken  rank  with  Cur  ran  as  one  of  the  m.ost  dazzling 
geniuses  of  the  Irish  bar.    Indeed  a  condition  similar 


ISAAC   BUTT  383 

to  that  in  which  Curran  established  his  position  among 
patriotic  Irishmen  by  his  defense  of  patriots  in  the 
courts  was  already  developing.  We  shall  now  notice 
one  chapter  in  the  life  of  Butt  which  reflects  infinite 
glory  upon  his  career,  and  entitles  him,  despite  his 
temperamental  weaknesses,  and  his  political  failure, 
to  the  lasting  love  and  gratitude  of  the  Irish  race. 

Ill 

There  has  never  been  an  hour  since  the  volunteers 
of  the  eighteenth  century  compelled  the  English  to 
concede  the  legislative  independence  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple when  there  has  not  been  a  large  element  devoted 
to  the  idea  that  Irish  rights  can  only  be  had  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet.  We  have  seen,  in  the  sketch  of 
Flood,  that  he  looked  upon  the  disbandment  of  the 
Volunteers  as  a  national  calamity.  A  little  later  the 
more  militant  remnant  of  the  Volunteers  became  the 
nucleus  of  the  United  Irishmen  who  met  their  fate  in 
the  unhappy  uprising  of  1798.  A  little  later  came  the 
"Young  Ireland"  enthusiasts  with  revolutionary  pur- 
poses, and  after  them  the  Fenians,  who  more  nearly 
resembled  in  their  organization  and  purposes  the 
United  Irishmen  than  any  other  militant  organization 
the  country  has  known. 

The  Fenian  Brotherhood  had  its  inspiration  among 
the  exiled  Irishmen  of  the  United  States,  where  it  was 
organized  toward  the  close  of  1861.  It  contemplated 
the  overthrow  of  English  authority  in  Ireland  by  force 
of  arms  and  the  establishment  of  an  Irish  republic.  It 
had  its  branch  organizations  in  every  state  in  the 
union,  and  very  soon  a  numerous  and  powerful  organ- 


384  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

ization  was  perfected  in  Ireland.  There  the  idea  was 
presented  at  a  time  when  the  soil  was  peculiarly  fecund 
for  the  proposition  of  force.  The  constitutional  move- 
ment for  repeal  was  dead.  The  English  attitude  to- 
ward Irish  rights  was  extremely  offensive.  Never, 
perhaps,  in  two  centuries  had  the  the  Irish  cause  been 
enveloped  in  such  gloom.  The  only  hope  was  force. 
And  this  hope  was  brightened  by  the  conditions  in  the 
United  States,  which  was  then  engaged  in  a  Civil  War 
in  which  thousands  of  Irishmen  were  distinguishing 
themselves  by  their  dash  and  valor.  At  the  head  of 
the  fighting  Irish  Brigade  rode  General  Thomas  Fran- 
cis Meagher — one  of  the  leaders  of  '48.  The  failure  of 
previous  uprisings  had  been  due  in  large  measure  to  the 
lack  of  proper  military  preparation.  And  now  the 
men  of  Ireland  were  preparing  in  the  training  schools 
of  Gettysburg  and  the  Wilderness. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  Fenian  idea  took  root  in  Ire- 
land and  spread  with  remarkable  celerity  and  with 
comparative  secrecy.  The  Fenians  were  a  fighting 
brood.  Night  after  night,  in  secluded  glens,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  brotherhood  were  drilled  in  military  tac- 
tics. One  of  the  songs  of  the  period  is  expressive  of 
the  spirit  of  the  times : 

"Enough  of  the  Voice  and  the  Pen,  boys. 
Let  us  try  the  Rifle — and  then,  boys, 

We'll  die  every  man,  or 

We'll  plant  the  green  banner 
Victorious  o'er  mountain  and  glen,  boys." 

As  has  always  been  the  case  with  the  revolutionists 
of  Ireland,  the  leaders  of  the  Fenians  were  men  of 
character  and  ability.  When  the  American  National- 
ists sent  an  emissary  over  to  Ireland  and  placed  upon 


ISAAC    BUTT  385 

James  Stephens,  a  strong-willed,  arrogant  and  dog- 
matic man,  the  burden  of  organizing  the  country  for 
the  revolution,  that  remarkable  personage  called  to  his 
aid  Thomas  Clarke  Luby  and  John  O'Leary.  Both 
were  men  of  exceptional  capacity.  An  appreciation  on 
their  part  of  the  importance  of  a  newspaper  as  a  me- 
dium of  communication  and  agitation  led  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  The  Irish  People  in  1863,  and  the  militant 
journal  continued  in  existence,  boldly  challenging  the 
right  of  England  to  rule  in  Ireland,  until  the  raid  upon 
it  and  its  suppression  in  the  autumn  of  1865. 

The  editorial  policy  of  The  Irish  People  was  domi- 
nated by  three  masterful  men,  Luby,  O'Leary  and 
Charles  Joseph  Kickman.  The  first  of  these  was 
an  able  and  courageous  man  of  a  genial  and  lovable 
disposition.  John  O'Leary  was  a  remarkable  person- 
age, possessed  of  marked  literary  ability,  and  it  is  to 
him  that  we  owe  the  fascinating  Recollections  of 
Fenians  and  Fenianism,  written  in  the  latter  days  of 
his  eventful  life.  According  to  O'Leary  the  genius  of 
the  editorial  staff  was  Charles  Joseph  Kickman,  who 
WTOte  brilliantly.  In  the  business  office  of  this  organ 
of  Fenianism  was  that  irrepressible  and  irreconcilable 
enemy  of  England  whose  notable  career  recently 
closed  amid  shadows  in  this  country,  O'Donovan 
Rossa.  Among  the  correspondents  of  the  journal  was 
that  other  venerable  Nemesis  of  English  rule,  John 
Devoy,  w^hose  status  in  Irish  history  was  fixed  in  the 
sponsorship  of  the  new  departure,  and  in  the  organiza- 
tion, along  with  Davitt  and  Parnell,  of  the  Land 
League,  and  whose  virile  pen  is  still  active  in  the  edi- 
torial columns  of  The  Gaelic  American.  Another  con- 
tributor whose  name  was  to  become  a  potential  one  in 


386  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Irish  history  was  Fanny  Parnell,  as  it  was  through  her 
connection  with  The  Irish  People  that  the  attention  of 
her  brother,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  was  first  turned 
toward  the  wrongs  of  his  race. 

After  the  raid  on  the  office  of  the  official  organ  of 
Fenianism  had  given  evidence  of  a  conspiracy  and 
Stephens,  Luhy,  O'Leary,  Haltigan,*  Rossa  and  others 
were  arrested  on  the  charge  of  treason- felony,  the 
Fenians  instinctively  turned  to  Isaac  Butt  to  repre- 
sent them  in  the  courts.  This  was  due  to  his  com- 
manding position  at  the  bar  and  his  persuasive  elo- 
quence and  not  because  he  had  manifested  the  slightest 
sympathy  with  the  principles  of  Fenianism.  On  the 
contrary  it  was  generally  understood  that  he  was  un- 
alterably opposed  to  any  movement  outside  the  con- 
stitutional groove.  The  acceptance  of  the  call  from 
the  Fenians,  however,  was  destined  to  have  a  very  re- 
markable effect  on  Irish  history.  It  was  to  convert  the 
old-time  loyalist  and  conservative  into  the  leader  of 
another  national  movement  looking  toward  the  resto- 
ration of  the  Irish  parliament  and  the  solution  of  the 
land  problem. 

The  trials  of  the  Fenians  were  travesties  'on  Jus- 
tice. Almost  a  century  had  intervened  since  Curran 
had  defended  the  United  Irishmen  in  courts  presided 
over  by  men  who  disgraced  the  ermine,  where  juries 
were  openly  packed,  and  military  display  was  resorted 
to  in  efforts  to  intimidate,  but  the  intervening  century 
had  brought  no  change  in  the  time-honored  methods  of 

*  John  Haltigan  was  the  printer  of  The  Irish  People.  His  son, 
James  Haltigan,  is  the  author  of  The  Irish  in  the  American  Revo- 
lution, and  another  son,  Patrick  J.  Haltigan,  for  many  years  the 
editor  of  the  National  Hibernian,  is  now  the  reading  clerk  of  the 
house  of  representatives. 


ISAAC   BUTT  387 

conducting  Irish  state  trials.  The  same  outrages  were 
perpetrated  in  the  name  of  justice. 

From  the  moment  he  accepted  the  defense  of  the 
Fenian  prisoners,  Butt  threw  himself,  heart  and  soul, 
into  the  task  before  him.  His  intimate  association 
with  his  clients  was  a  revelation  to  him.  It  gave  him  a 
new  light  on  Ireland.  As  the  cases  progressed,  he  re- 
tired more  and  more  from  his  general  practise,  and 
soon  abandoned  altogether  all  business  not  directly 
connected  with  the  Fenian  trials.  His  work  in  the 
courts  commanded  universal  attention  and  respect. 
Confronted  by  packed  juries,  by  prejudiced  judges,  by 
a  poisoned  public  opinion,  he  fought  every  inch  of  the 
ground  with  a  stubborn  tenacity  and  resourcefulness 
that  had  never  been  surpassed.  His  eloquence  was 
masterful  and  inspiring — but  it  was  all  in  vain.  The 
trials  were  a  farce.  Man  after  man  was  convicted,  and 
prisoner  after  prisoner,  in  speeches  from  the  dock, 
stirred  Ireland  from  the  Irish  sea  to  the  Bay  of  Bantry. 

Three  days  before  the  trials  were  to  begin  James 
Stephens  made  his  escape  from  prison  under  mysteri- 
ous circumstances,*  and  Luby  was  consequently  the 

*  O'Donovan  Rossa  in  Irish  Rebels,  the  story  of  his  prison  life, 
in  commenting  on  the  mysterious  disappearance  of  Stephens 
says:  "Next  morning  he  (John  Devoy,  present  editor  of  The 
Gcelic  American)  was  brought  back  and  we  renewed  our  ac- 
quaintance. Our  conversation  was  all  about  Ireland  and  'the 
movement.*  He  was  one  of  the  men  that  took  James  Stephens 
out  of  prison ;  and  it  was  into  his  arms  he  was  received  when  he 
slipped  off  the  prison  wall,  and  I  got  a  full  history  of  the  affair 
from  him.  It  is  strange  to  find  it  industriously  circulated  in 
America  that  James  Stephens  was  taken  out  of  prison  with  the 
connivance  of  the  English  government.  .  .  .  James  Stephens 
was  taken  out  of  prison  by  men  who  were  true  to  Ireland ;  and, 
whatever  can  be  said  of  him  in  other  respects,  this,  at  least,  may 
be  said  of  him,  that  he  is  as  free  from  the  taint  of  English  gold, 
and  as  unlikely  to  be  corrupted  by  it,  as  any  man  who  has  ever 
spoken  of  his  name." 


388  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

first  to  be  placed  on  trial  on  the  charge  of  treason- 
felony.  The  court  room  had  long  been  made  historic  by 
similar  scenes.  In  the  same  room  Curran  had  pleaded 
pitifully  for  justice  for  the  men  of  '98.  From  the  dock 
of  the  same  room  Emmet  had  made  his  appeal  "to 
time  and  to  eternity  and  not  to  men."  The  same 
methods  of  intimidations  were  resorted  to,  and  in  the 
beginning  of  his  speech  in  defense  of  Luby  we  find 
Butt,  following  in  the  wake  of  Curran,  protesting 
against  the  military  display. 

'^Everything,"  he  said,  "tends  to  make  us  all  believe 
that  there  is  something  extraordinary  and  peculiar  in  this 
trial.  A  great  Roman  advocate  whose  name  has  become 
a  model  for  advocacy  in  all  countries  and  all  ages  once 
asked,  when  defending  a  man  in  the  Forum,  'What  means 
this  clash  and  clang  of  armed  men  around  me  ?'  Gentle- 
men, I  ask,  why  is  it  that  in  your  streets  the  military 
are  surrounding  this  tribunal,  and  the  avenues  through 
which  the  populace  were  admitted  in  every  former  time 
to  witness  the  trials  in  this  place — why  are  they  now 
closed  by  the  police?  Why  is  the  audience  that  listens 
to  this  trial,  why  is  the  public — that  great  tribunal  before 
which  we  all  discharge  our  respective  duties — composed 
in  its  largest  proportions  of  the  constabulary  ?" 

So  much  for  the  physical  conditions  surrounding 
the  trials. 

In  his  defense  of  the  prisoners  Butt  approached  his 
task  with  the  positive  knowledge  that  his  clients  had 
been  engaged  in  a  conspiracy.  He  was  confronted,  of 
course,  by  the  inevitable  informers.  Handicapped  as 
he  was  he  took  advantage  of  every  technical  and  con- 
stitutional right,  only  to  have  them  brushed  aside  by 
the  court.    His  analysis  of  the  evidence  was  masterly. 


ISAAC    BUTT  389 

His  dissection  of  the  characters  and  rehabihty  of  the 
informers  disclosed  them  as  utterly  unworthy  of  cre- 
dence. Under  ordinary  conditions,  in  ordinary  trials, 
no  jury  could  have  been  found  to  convict  the  accused. 
But  the  advocate  soon  discovered  that  constitutional 
guarantees  availed  nothing.  The  well  established  rule 
proclaimed  by  Erskine,  and  agreed  to  by  an  English 
jury,  in  the  case  of  Hardy  was  denied  him.  The 
charges  of  judges  were  bitter  harangues  for  the  prose- 
cution. Such  flagrant  violations  of  the  established 
rules  of  justice  aroused  Butt's  indignation,  and  his 
protests  became  more  and  more  vehement.  It  was  here 
that  his  drift  away  from  the  ultra-conservatism  of  his 
youth  began,  and  even  in  the  Luby  trial,  in  denying 
the  treasonable  character  of  an  article  in  The  Irish 
People,  which  had  repudiated  the  proposition  that  lib- 
erty "is  not  worth  a  drop  of  human  blood,"  he  boldly 
exclaimed : 

"Gracious  Heavens,  is  not  a  person  to  say  that  in  a 
free  country  ?  And  do  I  understand  the  attorney-general 
to  say  that  he  read  with  horror  the  doctrine  that  no  po- 
litical advantage  is  worth  a  drop  of  blood?  I  hold  and 
avow  that  doctrine.  And  the  attorney-general  who  at- 
tacks it  is  the  attorney-general  of  the  ministry  who  ap- 
proved of  the  actions  of  Garibaldi  in  Italy,  and  the  at- 
torney-general of  the  sovereign  who  owns  the  throne  of 
this  realm,  with  the  proud  consciousness  that  Englishmen 
did  think  a  political  advantage  worth  a  great  deal  of 
blood  to  obtain  it;  and  Russell  shed  his  blood  on  the 
scaffold  for  it ;  and  the  men  of  Derry  were  the  men  who 
shed  their  blood  to  obtain  the  political  advantages  by 
which  the  sovereign  obtained  the  crown. 

*T  repudiate  the  doctrine  which  would  tell  us  to  think 
little  of  the  men  who  sacrificed  their  lives  to  give  free- 
dom to  the  Poles.    Which  of  us  would  visit  Switzerland 


390  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

and  fail  to  make  a  pious  pilgrimage  to  the  chapel  of  Will- 
iam Tell?  The  nation  that  holds  a  contrary  opinion 
would  be  a  nation  of  helots.  If  the  attorney-general  had 
said  this  in  the  days  of  Queen  Anne,  he  would  have  ap- 
proved the  acts  of  Doctor  Sacheverell.  He  preached  a 
sermon  in  which  he  said  no  one  should  resist  the  su- 
preme power  of  the  king,  and  he  was  impeached,  and 
the  house  of  lords  found  him  guilty,  and  he  lost  his 
church  preferments — and  his  book  was  burned  by  the 
common  hangman. 

"Therefore,  gentlemen,  do  not  misunderstand  this: 
The  doctrine  of  the  revolution  has  asserted  that  when 
the  sovereign  fails  in  his  duty  to  the  people,  the  people 
have  a  right  to  resist;  and  to  enable  them  to  enforce 
that  right,  the  heads  of  the  revolution  enacted  that  every 
Englishman  had  a  right  to  pure  freedom.  These  max- 
ims are  not  known  in  this  country.  The  British  consti- 
tution has  not  its  place  in  this  unhappy  land.  The  gov- 
ernment of  this  country  is  so  carried  on  that  it  is 
necessary  for  the  government  to  disarm  Its  people;  and 
I  must  tell  you  that  if  every  statement  of  this  kind  is  to 
be  spoken  of  as  high  treason  in  Ireland,  the  country  is 
not  governed  in  the  spirit  of  the  British  law.  Dismiss 
that  from  your  mind,  as  Luby  does,  that  doctrine  that 
a  political  advantage  is  not  worth  a  drop  of  human  blood. 
It  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  British  constitution,  it  is  not 
the  doctrine  of  the  British  law,  and  it  is  not  the  doctrine 
that  God  has  imprinted  in  the  minds  of  men." 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  such  outbursts  of  patri- 
otic indignation,  Butt  confined  himself  during  the  first 
of  the  Fenian  trials  to  insisting  on  every  constitutional 
right  for  his  client  and  to  exposing  the  failure  of  the 
evidence  to  fix  the  crime  of  treason- felony  upon  the 
defendants.  All  was  in  vain.  Luby,  O'Leary,  Halti- 
gan,  Moore,  Rossa — all  passed  from  the  dock  to  penal 
servitude.  But  when,  a  little  later,  following  the  up- 
rising, the  courts  were  packed  with  Fenians  charged 


ISAAC   BUTT  391 

with  high  treason  and  with  their  Hves  at  stake,  Butt 
threw  aside  restraint  and  challenged  the  injustice  of 
the  courts  with  a  boldness  suggestive  of  Curran. 
Henceforth  w^e  find  him  fighting  desperately  and  per- 
sistently for  every  constitutional  right  of  defense,  en- 
gaging in  occasional  sharp  altercations  with  the  judges, 
and  speaking  Vv^th  an  audacity  quite  foreign  to  his 
former  methods.  His  cross-examination  of  the  in- 
formers was  grilling  and  prolonged.  He  no  longer 
confined  himself  to  technical  defenses,  but,  as  in  his 
defense  of  Burke,  did  not  hestitate  passionately  to  de- 
fend the  character  of  the  Fenians  when  assailed.  His- 
toric justice  demands  that  this  defense,  made  in  the 
presence  of  authority,  and  in  the  face  of  the  attorney- 
general  be  preserved : 


"After  all  we  have  heard  charged  upon  those  engaged 
in  the  Fenian  organization,"  he  said,  "after  all  the  hide- 
ous stories  that  were  accepted  by  the  cowardly  credulity 
of  fear,  an  outbreak  did  occur.  In  many  places  the  gen- 
try were  at  the  mercy  of  these  cruelly  slandered  Fenians, 
and  we  can  say  with  pride  for  our  countrymen  that  not 
one  single  crime  of  cruelty  or  outrage  disgraced  their 
movement.  You  have  heard  this  proved  abundantly  in 
the  evidence  of  this  case.  Even  the  police  who  fell  into 
their  hands  were  treated  with  kindness.  They  spared 
them  and  let  them  go,  when  they  knew  that  in  doing  so 
they  were  leaving  the  witnesses  whose  testimony  might 
bring  them  to  the  scaffold.  For  hours  together  these 
witnesses  were  in  their  power.  They  voluntarily  let  them 
go  unharmed  when  they  might  forever  have  silenced  the 
voice  of  the  accuser;  and  if  any  one  ever  suffers  for 
being  of  the  party  at  Stepaside  and  Glencullen,  he  must 
be  convicted  on  the  testimony  of  witnesses  who,  as  they 
appear  one  after  another  against  him,  are  living  and 
breathing  witnesses  of  the  mercy  and  humanity  of  the 


392  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

insurgents.  Had  they  been  actuated  by  bloodthirstmess 
or  cruelty  these  witnesses  would  never  have  been  here 
to  tell  the  tale." 

In  his  defense  of  John  M'Cafiferty,  an  American 
citizen,  Butt  made  an  especially  brilliant  fight,  placing 
the  court  on  record  as  refusing  the  prisoner's  rights 
guaranteed  by  the  spirit  of  the  British  law. 

As  the  injustice  of  the  trials  grew  more  flagrant, 
Butt  became  more  and  more  audacious  in  his  denuncia- 
tion of  the  government  until  in  the  trial  of  Flood, 
Duffy  and  Cody  he  reached  a  climax  in  a  bitter  denun- 
ciation of  the  court.  In  this  case  the  unfairness  of  the 
proceeding  was  peculiarly  irritating  and  infamous. 
The  three  men,  tried  together,  were  charged  with  sep- 
arate offenses,  and  Cody  was  charged  with  being  a 
party  to  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate  the  presiding 
judges  and  the  members  of  a  jury  in  a  previous  trial, 
four  of  whom  sat  on  his  own  case.  That  this  was 
done  with  the  deliberate  intent  to  blacken  the  prospects 
for  the  acquittal  of  Flood  and  Duffy  was  all  too  evi- 
dent. The  impassioned  protests  of  Butt  were  un- 
heeded. In  the  course  of  his  argument  to  the  jury  the 
intrepid  advocate  created  something  of  a  sensation  by 
the  audacity  of  his  attack  upon  the  proceeding  when 
he  said : 

*T  ask  you,  then,  was  there  ever  in  the  annals  of  a 
British  tribunal — in  the  history  of  the  regular  tribunals 
of  any  country  upon  earth — such  a  spectacle  as  is  now 
presented  in  this  court  in  the  drama  now  going  on,  into 
which  you  and  the  judges  have  been  reluctantly  dragged 
as  actors?  The  pilsoner,  Cody,  is  on  trial  for  conspir- 
acy to  shoot  three  judges.  These  three  judges  are  sitting 
in  judgment  upon  him  on  that  charge.     He  is  on  trial 


ISAAC   BUTT  393 

for  conspiracy  to  shoot  twelve  other  persons  who  are 
named — to  shoot  them  because,  attending  here  on  the 
panel,  they  have  given  a  verdict  in  another  case.  Four 
of  these  persons  are  sitting  as  jurors  to  try  whether  he 
is  guilty  of  that  charge.  The  statement  of  these  facts 
is  sufficient  to  brand  this  trial  as  an  outrage  upon  every 
principle  of  justice." 

And  in  the  course  of  the  same  speech  Butt  did  not 
hesitate  to  accuse  the  government  with  manufacturing 
a  false  charge  of  conspiracy  to  assassinate  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  the  queen  from  extending  mercy 
to  men  already  convicted  and  sentenced  to  die  the 
frightful  death  of  the  scaffold.  Owing  to  the  attempt 
that  has  been  made  to  blacken  the  character  of  the 
Fenians  who  have  played  such  an  important  part  in 
the  Irish  movement,  everything  urged  in  their  behalf 
in  the  presence  of  the  representatives  of  the  govern- 
ment is  important  in  establishing  their  historic  status. 
On  the  assassination  charge  Butt  said : 

"I  ask  you  as  Irish  gentlemen,  as  men  of  Irish  truth 
and  Irish  justice,  entirely  to  discredit  this  damnable  fab- 
rication of  the  assassination  plot.  I  am  anxious  for  the 
prisoners.  I  am  anxious  for  those,  not  now  on  their 
trial,  against  whom,  when  they  were  on  their  trial,  no 
such  evidence  was  produced,  no  such  charge  was  made. 
I  am  anxious  for  the  honor  of  our  country.  Wild  and, 
if  you  will,  wicked  men  may  have  used  language  that 
implied  that  they  were  ready  to  administer  the  wild  jus- 
tice of  revenge.  Wild  and  desperate  men  may  have  done 
desperate  things  to  avenge  themselves  on  individual  in- 
formers. These  are  the  incidents  of  every  conflict  in 
which  strong  passions  are  engaged.  But  on  behalf  of 
those  who  have  been  guiding  the  Fenian  organization; 
on  behalf  of  those  who  are  now  wearing  out  their  lives 
in  the  miseries  of  a  convict  prison;  on  behalf  of  those 


394  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

who  are  awaiting  the  execution  of  the  doom  that  has 
sentenced  them  to  die;  on  behalf  of  all  Irishmen  who 
have  joined  in  this  wild  effort  for  their  native  land, 
whether  they  lie  in  the  prison  cell  or  are  still  free  on 
their  native  hills,  or  exiles  in  far-off  lands,  I  indignantly 
deny  that  ever  any  design  of  assassination  entered  into 
their  plans.  It  is  a  cruel  slander  upon  men  whose  whole 
life  and  conduct,  whatever  were  their  political  follies  or 
their  political  crimes,  prove  them  incapable  of  this. 

"Do  not  wonder  at  my  earnestness.  Even  in  the  pres- 
ence of  those  to  whom  my  first  duty  is  now  due,  I  can 
not  forget  that  in  this  evidence  a  blow  is  struck  at  those 
who  are  not  here.  The  life  of  a  noble-hearted  man  may 
be  at  this  moment  trembling  in  the  balance.  We  know — 
I  state  nothing  that  has  not  been  the  subject  of  public 
discussion — we  know  the  mercy  that  has  touched  the 
royal  breast ;  we  know  how  considerations  of  state  policy 
have  been  urged  against  it ;  how  against  those  considera- 
tions the  instincts  of  woman's  heart  have  pleaded  in  a 
queenly  bosom.  We  know  the  efforts  in  which  the  voice 
of  humanity  has  spoken  to  the  throne  the  desires  of  loyal 
men  that  the  life  of  the  true-hearted  might  be  spared. 
And  now,  when  that  life  is  trembling  in  the  balance,  the 
fabrication  of  that  vile  traitor  is  brought  forward  here 
to  turn  the  scale.  And  those  who  cry  for  blood  believe 
that  if  the  fabrication  which  represents  assassination  as 
a  portion  of  the  Fenian  plan  can  gain  one  moment's 
credence,  evil  passions  would  be  stirred,  in  whose  pres- 
ence mercy  and  justice  might  plead  in  vain.  And  know- 
ing all  this,  feeling  all  this,  thinking  that  he  could  do 
service  if  he  could  give  reason  for  taking  away  of  human 
life,  that  wretched  man  has  crept  from  his  loathsome 
lair,  a  lair  more  loathsome  than  the  stew  from  which  he 
came  a  second  time  to  swear  away  the  life  of  Burke, 
and  by  this  new  fabrication  earn  another  claim  upon  the 
gratitude  of  those  who  are  thirsting  for  blood." 

It  was  also  in  the  course  of  his  defense  of  Flood 
that  Butt  made  the  bitter  charge  that  the  British  em- 


ISAAC   BUTT  395 

pire  apparently  had  one  law  for  England  and  another 
one  for  Ireland.  The  charge  upon  which  Flood 
was  tried  was  that  he  had  entered  into  a  conspiracy  for 
the  seizure  of  Chester  Castle  in  England — but  he  was 
being  tried  in  Dublin.  In  several  of  his  speeches  dur- 
ing the  Fenian  trials  he  had  harped  upon  the  ruling  of 
the  English  courts  in  the  Hardy  case  that  no  man 
could  be  convicted  of  high  treason  on  the  testimony  of 
one  witness — a  ruling  utterly  ignored  in  the  Fenian 
trials.  Time  and  again  he  had  quoted  Lord  Russell  to 
the  effect  that  Irish  juries  were  more  pliable  to  the 
purposes  of  the  government  than  English  juries.  And 
in  the  Flood  case  he  picked  upon  the  same  chord  in 
commenting  upon  the  fact  that  not  one  prosecution 
had  been  initiated  in  England  in  connection  with  the 
affair  at  Chester. 


"And,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "when  we  come  to  consider 
this  marvelous  story  of  the  project  for  the  seizure  of 
Chester  Castle,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  the 
singular  fact  that  not  one  single  human  being  has  been 
prosecuted  in  England  for  a  participation  in  that  treason- 
able design.  In  the  center  of  one  of  the  most  peaceful 
and  prosperous  districts  of  peaceful  and  loyal  England, 
hundreds  of  persons  assembled  in  that  quaint  old  city 
of  Chester  to  raise  the  standard  of  open  rebellion,  to 
make  war  upon  the  queen's  troops,  to  seize  upon  one  of 
the  strongholds  of  the  nation  in  the  open  day.  They 
came  in  troops  from  every  quarter ;  they  filled  the  streets 
of  the  town ;  and  disappeared  as  mysteriously  as  they 
came.  And  of  all  the  crowd  that  met  them  in  the  broad 
daylight — if  you  are  to  believe  the  story — in  an  act  of 
open  and  audacious  rebellion,  not  one  has  been  prose- 
cuted or  brought  to  account.  Not  an  effort  appears  to 
have  been  made  to  find  out  even  who  they  were.  No 
reward  is  offered  for  the  apprehension  of  any  of  them. 


396  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

They  left  their  homes,  wherever  they  live,  quietly  in  the 
morning.  They  went  back  to  them  as  quietly  in  the 
evening.  No  one  can  tell  us  who  they  were,  whence 
they  came  or  whither  they  went.  The  tranquillity  of  the 
old  city  was  not  disturbed  for  one  single  hour.  No  mag- 
isterial investigation  has  ever  been  instituted.  No  police 
inquiry  was  held.  A  rebellion  passed  off  as  a  matter  of 
course — and  at  this  hour  no  single  individual  has  been 
made  amenable  to  justice  for  being  in  Chester  with  that 
party  of  traitors  on  that  day. 

"Two  persons  have  been  put  upon  their  trials  for  par- 
ticipation in  that  treasonable  raid — and  their  trials  take 
place  in  Dublin.  If  the  case  be  true,  why  was  not  Flood 
tried  in  Chester?  There  is  but  one  reason  that  can  be 
assigned.  They  dare  not  submit  to  an  English  jury  the 
evidence  on  which  they  ask  you  to  convict.  Lord  Rus- 
sell has  said,  and  truly  said,  that  'while  in  all  state  trials 
English  juries  lean  to  the  side  of  liberty,  Irish  juries  lean 
to  the  side  of  arbitrary  power  and  the  crown.'  Were 
they  afraid  of  an  English  jury?  Why  was  not  this  man 
tried  in  Chester?  Are  you  empaneled  on  that  jury  to 
verify  the  reproach  of  Lord  Russell,  and  give  one  more 
proof  that  when  men  are  accused  by  power,  Irish  juries 
can  always  be  found  ready  to  convict  them  on  evidence 
on  which  English  juries  would  refuse  to  act  ?" 

But  such  appeals  were  futile.  The  real  secret  of  the 
pliability  of  Irish  juries  in  state  trials  has  always  been 
that  pov/er  has  selected  the  juries  in  such  cases  with 
the  view  to  conviction  regardless  of  evidence,  and  such 
was  the  case  in  the  Fenian  trials.  The  accused  Fenians 
one  after  another  were  passed  through  a  form  of  trial 
and  promptly  convicted.  JMany  were  sentenced  to 
penal  servitude  for  many  years.  Some,  accused  of 
high  treason,  were  sentenced  to  die  upon  the  scaffold, 
to  be  hung  by  the  neck  until  dead,  to  "have  their  heads 
severed  from  their  bodies,  and  their  bodies  cut  into 


ISAAC    BUTT  397 

four  parts."  It  was  the  old  familiar  formula  for  Irish 
patriots.  Through  the  interference  of  the  queen  those 
sentenced  to  die  were  spared  for  penal  servitude.  The 
Fenian  movement  was  apparently  destroyed.  There 
came,  a  little  later  on,  another  episode  at  Manchester 
resulting  in  the  making  of  a  few  more  martyrs,  Allen, 
Larkin  and  O'Brien,  whose  memories  are  held  in  rev- 
erance  by  Irishmen  throughout  the  world.  But  Fenian- 
ism  was  history. 

The  shameless  travesty  of  the  Fenian  trials,  and  the 
nobility  of  the  character  of  the  Fenian  prisoners, 
awakened  Isaac  Butt  to  a  new  career — a  career  fore- 
shadowed in  the  following  lines  from  his  peroration  in 
defense  of  Flood : 

"Deeper  far  than  Fenianism,  deeper  than  any  external 
manifestation,  lies  the  disaffection  of  the  people  to  the 
whole  system  by  which  they  are  ruled.  Rebellion  may 
be  put  down  by  force.  Flying  columns  may  rout  and 
scatter  the  bands  of  undisciplined  revolt.  But  still  the 
disaffection  lurks  in  the  secret  hearts  of  the  people.  By 
the  peasant's  fireside,  round  the  hearth  of  the  cottage, 
hatred — I  grieve  in  my  soul  to  use  the  word,  but  it  is  a 
true  one — hatred  of  the  whole  system  of  Irish  govern- 
ment rankles  in  every  breast." 

And  thus  from  the  Dublin  court  room  in  which  Em- 
met made  his  immortal  appeal,  in  which  Curran  had 
poured  forth  his  splendid  eloquence,  Isaac  Butt  went 
forth  to  dedicate  his  genius  henceforth  to  the  undi- 
vided service  of  his  country. 

IV 

The  government,  however,  was  not  satisfied  with  a 
mere  conviction.     Some  of  these  unhappy  prisoners 


398  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

were  almost  goaded  into  insanity.  Prodded  to  fury  by 
one  of  the  wardens,  O'Donovan  Rossa  was  betrayed 
into  making  an  attack  upon  the  miserable  persecutor 
and  for  thirty-five  days  he  paid  the  penalty  of  assert- 
ing his  manhood  by  having  his  hands  handcuffed  be- 
hind his  back. 

However,  the  government  was  not  alone  in  its  de- 
termination to  follow  the  Fenians  into  the  prisons,  for 
Isaac  Butt  had  become  so  ardently  attached  to  the 
cause  of  his  clients  that  he  determined  to  make  their 
cause  a  national  cause.  With  this  in  view  he  organ- 
ized and  became  president  of  the  Amnesty  Association, 
perfected  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  their  release. 
He  determined  that  Ireland  should  make  their  cause 
her  own,  and  that  England  and  the  world  should  know 
something  of  the  ineffable  brutality  to  which  they  were 
being  subjected. 

His  first  step  was  to  petition  Gladstone.  He  might 
as  well  have  petitioned  Mars.  Only  a  little  while  be- 
fore Gladstone  had  given  expression  to  a  bitter  and 
eloquent  protest  against  the  treatment  of  some  Italian 
prisoners  incarcerated  in  an  Italian  prison — but  these 
were  Irishmen,  British  subjects,  incarcerated  in  a  Brit- 
ish prison.  He  turned  a  deaf  ear.  Then  Butt  deter- 
mined that  Gladstone  should  hear.  He  made  his  appeal 
direct  to  Ireland.  A  series  of  monster  meetings  was 
held  all  over  the  island  and  the  people  poured  forth 
as  they  had  not  done  since  the  days  of  O'Connell.  The 
masterful  eloquence  of  Butt  had  aroused  them  as  they 
had  not  been  stirred  since  the  god-like  Dan  had  thun- 
dered from  the  repeal  platform.  The  records  show  that 
during  the  year  1869  more  than  a  million  men  appeared 
at  the  Amnesty  meetings  to  register  a  passionate  pro- 


ISAAC   BUTT  399 

test  with  the  government.  In  August  the  Amnesty 
orators  addressed  seventeen  thousand  at  Limerick,  ten 
thousand  at  Waterford,  thirty  thousand  at  Drogheda ; 
in  September  they  spoke  to  twenty  thousand  at  Bray, 
thirty  thousand  at  Kilkenny  and  Kilfinane,  thirty  thou- 
sand at  Dundalk,  twenty  thousand  at  Longford,  fifty 
thousand  at  Castlebar,  seventy  thousand  at  Inchicore, 
forty  thousand  at  Cork,  and  thirty  thousand  at  Clo- 
nard;  and  in  October  they  appeared  before  forty  thou- 
sand at  Templemore,  twenty  thousand  at  Ennis,  twenty 
thousand  at  Roscommon,  fifty  thousand  at  Ennis- 
corthy,  twenty  thousand  at  Navan,  fifty  thousand  at 
Tipperary,  and  Butt  capped  the  chmax  in  a  startHng 
meeting  in  the  fields  of  Cabra,  Dublin,  where  he 
swayed  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  micn  Avith  an 
eloquence  that  appealed  to  those  wdio  heard  it  as  in- 
spired. 

The  meeting  in  the  fields  of  Cabra  smacked  of  revo- 
lution. Butt  had  given  a  sufficient  manifestation  of 
the  fact  that  the  Irish  people  were  not  unmindful  that 
the  Eenian  prisoners  were  persecuted  because  of  their 
loyalty  to  Ireland.  He  now  felt  that  the  time  was  ripe 
for  a  cessation  of  these  gatherings,  and  immediately 
after  the  Cabra  meeting,  he  offered  a  resolution  before 
the  Amnesty  Association  to  the  effect  that  no  more 
meetings  should  be  held  for  the  time  being  in  view  of 
the  overwhelming  evidence  that  had  been  given  the 
government  of  the  popular  sentiment  in  Ireland. 

But  Butt  was  not  to  rest  his  case  with  the  Cabra 
meeting.  Once  more  he  turned  to  Gladstone  in  a  let- 
ter of  great  length  and  tremendous  force,  reviewing 
the  case  in  detail,  and  linking  the  treatment  of  the 
Fenian  prisoners  with  the  whole  of  Ireland.    It  is  in 


400  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

this  masterful  letter  that  we  have  our  first  introduction 
to  the  new  Butt — conservative  no  longer,  English  sym- 
pathizer no  longer,  but  now  an  aggressive  Irish  patriot, 
in  complete  accord  with  Irish  sentiment.  The  follow- 
ing passage  is  not  only  an  eloquent  defense  of  the  pris- 
oners, but  throws  a  light  of  historic  value  upon  the 
character  of  the  Fenians : 

"Aluch  of  that  change,  I  have  said,  was  due  to  the  per- 
sonal demeanor  of  the  men.  Let  me  dwell  for  a  moment 
on  a  matter  that,  in  truth,  vitally  affects  the  question  of 
their  right  to  a  pardon — I  mean  the  personal  character  of 
the  prisoners,  and  the  motives  and  objects  with  which 
they  entered  on  the  enterprise  in  which  they  were  en- 
gaged. Whatever  obloquy  gathered  round  them  at  first, 
there  are  few  men  who  noAV  deny  to  the  leaders  of  the 
Fenian  conspiracy  the  merit  of  perfect  sincerity,  of  a 
deep  and  honest  conviction  of  the  righteousness  of  their 
cause,  and  of  an  unselfish  and  disinterested  devotion  to 
that  cause.  I  was  placed  toward  most  of  them  in  a  re- 
lation which  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  observing  them 
in  circumstances  which  try  men's  souls.  Both  I  and  those 
who  were  associated  with  me  in  that  relation  have  often 
been  struck  by  their  high-minded  truthfulness,  that 
shrunk  with  sensitiveness  from  subterfuges  which  few 
men  in  their  position  would  have  thought  wrong.  No 
mean  or  selfish  instructions  ever  reached  us.  Many,  very 
many  messages  were  conveyed  to  us  which  were  marked 
by  a  punctilious  and  an  almost  overstrained  anxiety 
to  avoid  even  a  semblance  of  departure  from  the  strict- 
est line  of  honor.  There  was  not  one  of  them  who  would 
have  purchased  his  safety  by  a  falsehood,  by  a  concession 
that  would  have  brought  dishonor  to  his  cause,  or  by  a 
disclosure  that  would  have  compromised  the  safety  of  a 
companion.  It  seems  like  an  exaggeration  to  say  this; 
but  this  is  a  matter  on  which  I  can  write  as  a  witness, 
and  therefore  am  bound  by  the  responsibility  of  one. 

"I  know  that  my  testimony  would  be  confirmed  by  all 


Courtesy  Mrs.  Rossa 
O'Donovan   Rossa 
Taken  just  before  his  last  illness 


ISAAC    BUTT  401 

who  had  the  same  means  of  observing  them  as  myself. 
The  conviction  was  forced  upon  us  all  that,  whatever 
the  men  were,  they  were  no  vulgar  revolutionists,  dis- 
turbing their  country  for  any  base  or  selfish  purpose ; 
they  were  enthusiasts  of  great  hearts  and  lofty  minds; 
and,  with  the  bold  and  unw^avering  courage  with  which, 
one  and  all,  they  met  the  doom  which  the  law  pronounced 
against  their  crime,  there  was  a  startling  proof  that  their 
cause  and  their  principles  had  power  to  inspire  in  them 
the  faith  and  the  endurance  which  elevated  suffering  into 
martyrdom. 

"These,  I  confess,  are  the  memories  that  have  haunted 
me,  and  which  have  stirred  my  heart,  when  I  thought 
that  men  like  these  were  sent  to  herd  with  the  vilest 
and  the  meanest  criminals,  and  subjected  to  indignities 
which  we  can  scarcely  bear  to  see  inflicted  on  the  most 
vile.  If  I  am  right  in  the  description  I  have  given  of 
them,  there  is  a  moral  unfitness  in  the  degradation  they 
are  enduring.  I  know  well  that  law  must  vindicate  its 
power — I  know  well  that  no  government  can  treat  re- 
bellion as  a  venal  offense.  But  there  are  instincts  in  our 
nature  which  teach  us,  above  all  the  selfish  sophistries  that 
appeal  to  our  cowardice  and  our  passions,  that  to  in- 
flict the  lifelong  punishment  of  the  convict  prison  upon 
high-minded  and  truthful  and  self-sacrificing  enthusiasts 
is  morally  wrong.  It  is  from  this  that  I  take  my  start. 
The  administration  of  criminal  justice  which  places  such 
men  on  a  level  with  the  off"scourings  of  mankind  offends 
against  feelings  which  can  not  be  violated  without  crime. 

".  .  .  Our  queen  has  these  men  in  her  power.  The 
law  has  given  her  the  absolute  right  to  punish  them  as 
they  are  punished.  But  the  law  has  also  entrusted  her 
with  the  noble  prerogative  of  pardon ;  and  her  oath,  em- 
bodying a  duty  which  God  has  cast  on  her  when  he  placed 
the  scepter  in  her  hands,  binds  her  to  administer  justice 
with  mercy.  You  are  her  chief  adviser  in  the  discharge 
of  obligations  from  which  neither  you  nor  she  can  es- 
cape. I  ask  you  solemnly — I  ask  you  by  the  highest  ob- 
ligation that  can  bind  you  to  take  up  and  study  the  case 


402  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

of  any  one  of  the  prisoners  you  are  detaining.  Be  satis- 
fied— as  I  know  you  will  and  must  be  satisfied — that, 
no  matter  how  much  you  may  condemn  him,  he  acted 
under  a  sincere  and  honest  conviction  of  duty  to  his 
country  in  an  honest  and  elevated  effort  to  redress  his 
country's  wrongs ;  that  no  selfish  scheme  of  aggrandize- 
ment darkened  the  purity  of  his  motives;  that  no  de- 
sire of  bloodshed  or  violence  mingled  with  his  hopes  for 
his  country's  deliverance.  Read  over,  then,  the  accounts 
of  the  miseries  and  the  degradations  w^hich  he  endures; 
and  when  next  you  enter  the  closet  of  your  sovereign, 
and  advise  her  as  your  conscience  tells  you  as  to  the  duty 
which  she  owes  to  that  convict  over  whom  God  has  given 
her  power — will  you,  can  you  say  that  it  is  to  leave  him 
in  that  misery  and  that  degradation  ?  I  am  descending  to 
somewhat  lower  grounds  when  I  remind  you  of  that  to 
which  I  have  already  referred — the  absence  of  all  out- 
rage or  violence  which  marked  the  outbreak  of  March, 
1867.  It  can  not  be  said  that  there  was  not  opportunity. 
I  was  present  at  more  than  one  trial  at  which  it  was 
undeniably  proved  that  the  homes  of  loyal,  actively  loyal 
gentlemen,  were  in  absolute  control  of  armed  parties  of 
insurgents.  The  ladies  of  the  famlty,  in  some  instances 
unprotected  and  alone,  had  not  to  complain  of  one  rude 
word  addressed  to  one  of  them." 

Having  shown  in  various  ways  that  the  whole  IrisH 
nation  was  demanding  amnesty  for  the  Fenian  pris- 
oners, he  argued  that  a  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  gov- 
ernment would  be  proof  positive  to  the  Irish  people 
that  they  were  not  looked  upon  as  the  equals  in  rights 
of  the  English  in  the  so-called  co-partnership  of  the 
tw^o  nations : 

"Some  years  ago  there  was  an  unsuccessful  revolt  in 
England.  There  had  been  in  that  country  prosecutions 
for  high  treason.  Suppose  the  men  convicted  of  that 
offense  to  be  enduring  penal  servitude.     Suppose  the 


ISAAC   BUTT  403 

whole  English  nation,  with  one  consent,  to  ask  for  their 
liberation — all  the  municipalities  of  England  to  send  their 
chief  magistrates  to  the  levee  of  her  majesty,  to  place 
in  her  hands  the  petitions  which  these  municipalities  had 
desired  them  to  present — the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  to 
exercise  his  ancient  prerogative  of  addressing  the  queen 
upon  her  throne,  and  to  proceed  from  the  audience  of 
his  sovereign  to  the  bar  of  the  house  of  commons,  and 
there  to  present  the  petitions  of  the  chief  municipality 
in  the  kingdom.  Suppose  mighty  mass  meetings  to  as- 
semble myriads  in  every  district  and  city  and  town.  Sup- 
pose three  hundred  thousand  men  to  meet  peacefully  and 
quietly  on  Hampstead  Heath,  or  even  to  seize,  in  spite 
of  the  police,  upon  one  of  the  royal  parks.  Suppose  all 
this  countenanced  by  a  large  portion  of  the  magistracy 
of  the  country.  And  lastly  suppose  the  demand  for  a 
pardon  to  be  supported  earnestly  and  solemnly  by  the 
clergy  of  the  church  of  the  English  people.  How  many 
days — how  many  hours  would  elapse  before  the  prison 
doors  were  thrown  open  ?  How  many  days  would  power 
be  retained  by  the  minister — I  might  almost  say  by  the 
sovereign — if  they  were  not? 

"While  the  prisoners  are  detained  in  penal  servitude 
against  the  will  of  the  Irish  people,  that  detention  will 
be  to  Ireland  a  living  badge  of  conquest — not  the  less 
galling  because  you  will  not  trust  them  to  any  place  of 
keeping  on  Irish  soil.  Every  mark  of  national  servitude 
attends  the  imprisonment  of  those  whom  the  Irish  people 
desire  to  let  go. 

"I  know  that  while  they  are  kept  in  custody  the  dis- 
cussion will  go  on.  It  w^ill  assume  a  form  and  a  character 
different  from  any  that  have  hitherto  belonged  to  it. 
There  are  bold  and  feeling  hearts  in  Ireland  that  will 
never  let  this  matter  rest.  I  could  tell  you  of  a  thousand 
forms  in  which  the  popular  resentment  may  disturb  and 
embitter  all  the  relations  of  government  and  of  political 
life.  Like  Banquo's  ghost,  it  w^ill  present  itself  at  every 
public  feast.  It  will  raise  its  angry  form  at  every  bust- 
ing where  the  supporter  of  the  government  appears.    It 


404  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

will  meet  our  rulers  in  their  walks  and  drives  through 
our  streets.  The  narrative  of  the  sorrows  of  the  prison- 
ers will  be  repeated,  in  prose  and  song,  in  the  far-oflf 
lands  in  which  the  Irish  race  is  scattered.  It  may  be 
that  throughout  Europe,  in  the  dismal  tales  of  the  se- 
verities of  Dartmoor,  the  story  of  Silvio  Pellico  and 
Speilberg  will  be  revived." 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  powerful  appeal 
of  Isaac  Butt,  for  whom  Gladstone  entertained  a  high 
personal  regard,  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the 
prime  minister,  but  the  government  was  adamant. 
Then,  after  the  mass  meetings,  came  more  convincing 
and  startling  proof  that  Ireland  w^as  aroused.  A  va- 
cancy occurred  in  the  parliamentary  representation  of 
Tipperary,  and  it  was  decided  to  put  up  O'Donovan 
Rossa,  the  splendid  patriot  who  recently  died  in  New 
York  and  w'as  imposingly  buried  in  Dublin,  and  who 
w^as  still  in  penal  servitude.  A  popular  government 
candidate  w^as  put  up  against  him — a  man  of  fine  quali- 
ties who  had  been  one  of  the  Fenians'  legal  battery  in 
the  trials.  The  people  were  not  opposed  to  the  lawyer 
— they  were  for  Rossa  for  a  purpose.  In  those  days 
it  required  money  to  conduct  a  campaign  in  Tipperary. 
There  was  no  fund,  but  the  people  responded  with 
such  marked  generosity  that  a  fund  of  sufficient  pro- 
portions was  almost  immediately  raised.  Rossa  was 
easily  elected — and  the  news  carried  to  Gladstone.* 


*John  Mitchell,  commenting  at  the  time  on  the  election  of 
Rossa,  said:  "A  great  event  has  befallen  in  Irish  history.  Tip- 
perary has  just  done  a  wiser  and  a  bolder  deed  than  her  sister 
county  of  Clare  achieved  forty  years  ago.  That  Clare  election 
won,  to  be  sure,  v/hat  was  called  Catholic  Emancipation,  for 
the  Claremen  elected  the  disqualified  Catholic,  O'Connell,  to  rep- 
resent them  in  parliament.  Now  the  Tipperarymen  have  elected 
the  disqualified  felon,  O'Donovan  Rossa,  in  his  convict  cell— have 


ISAAC   BUTT  405 

While  the  result  was  not  immediate  an  impression  had 
been  made  upon  the  government,  and  Butt  persisted 
in  his  agitation  until  success  finally  crowned  his  efforts. 
But  the  Amnesty  movement  and  the  Fenian  trials 
did  something  more  than  reawaken  Ireland — it  made 
a  leader.  It  smoothed  the  way  for  the  revival  of  the 
constitutional  agitation  for  home  rule.  It  altered  the 
view  of  Isaac  Butt.  The  effect  upon  him,  as  he  has 
described  it,  was  expressed  in  his  speech  to  the  Na- 
tional Conference  of  1873 : 

"Mr.  Gladstone  said  that  Fenianism  taught  him  the 
intensity  of  Irish  disaffection.  It  taught  me  more  and 
better  things.  It  taught  me  the  depth,  the  breadth,  the 
sincerity  of  that  love  of  fatherland  that  misgovernment 
had  tortured  into  disaffection.  And  misgovernment, 
driving  men  to  despair,  had  exaggerated  into  revolt. 
State  trials  were  not  new  to  me.  Twenty  years  before 
I  stood  near  Smith  OT^rien  when  he  braved  the  sentence 
of  death  which  the  law  pronounced  upon  him.  I  saw 
Meagher  meet  the  same  and  then  I  asked  myself  this, 
^Surely  the  state  is  out  of  joint,  surely  all  our  social 
system  is  unhinged  when  O'Brien  and  Aleagher  are  con- 
demned by  their  country  to  a  traitor's  doom.'  Twenty 
years  have  passed  away,  and  once  more  I  stood  by  men 
who  had  dared  the  desperate  enterprise  of  freeing  their 
country  by  revolt.  They  were  men  who  were  run  down 
by  obloquy — they  had  been  branded  as  the  enemies  of 
religion  and  social  order.  I  saw  them  manfully  bear  up 
against  all.  I  saw  the  unflinching  firmness  to  their  cause 
by  which  they  testified  the  sincerity  of  their  faith  in  that 
cause — the  deep  conviction  of  its  righteousness  and  truth 
— I  saw  them  meet  their  fate  with  a  manly  fanaticism 

elected  among  all  those  imprisoned  comrades  the  very  one  whom 
England  most  specially  abhors — because  he  defied  and  denounced 
the  most  loudly  her  government,  her  traitor  judges  and  her 
packed  juries — elected  him  as  the  most  fit  and  proper  person  to 
represent  them." 


406  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

that  made  them  martyrs.  I  heard  their  words  of  devo- 
tion to  their  country,  as  with  firm  step  and  unyielding 
heart  they  left  the  dock  and  went  down  the  dark  passage 
that  led  them  to  the  place  where  all  hope  closed  upon 
them.  And  I  asked  myself  again,  'Is  there  no  way  to 
arrest  this?  Are  our  best  and  bravest  spirits  to  be  car- 
ried away  under  this  system  of  constantly  resisted  op- 
pression and  constantly  defeated  revolt  ?'  " 

Thus  the  Fenians  converted  Isaac  Butt,  the  quiet 
conservative,  into  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  Irish 
patriots.  Henceforth  we  shall  find  him  giving  up  all, 
profession,  opulence  and  ease,  to  devote  the  remaining 
years  of  his  life  to  the  cause  of  his  oppressed  country, 
fighting  fearlessly  and  constantly,  albeit  perhaps  not 
successfully,  but  until  he  had  presented  the  cause  of 
Ireland  to  the  imperial  parliament  so  effectively  that 
for  the  first  time  in  many  years,  the  rights  of  Ireland 
were  once  more  the  topic  of  the  London  clubs,  draw- 
ing-rooms, and  English  country  houses.  His  amnesty 
movement  had  awakened  Ireland.  We  shall  now  see 
him  shaking  John  Bull  out  of  his  complacent  sleep. 


The  excitement  incidental  to  the  amnesty  move- 
ment soon  swept  Butt  away  from  his  professional 
moorings  and  into  the  maelstrom  of  parliamentary  life 
again.  It  was  quite  a  different  man,  however,  who  re- 
entered Westminster  from  the  unambitious  soul  who 
had  left  it  in  1865.  With  Butt  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  life  were  reversed.  Instead  of  being  consumed  in 
youth  with  an  overweening  ambition  which  gradually 
simmered  down  into  a  conservative  old  age,  he  gave 
evidence  of  no  high  aspirations  in  youth,  and  in  old 


ISAAC    BUTT  407 

age  he  undertook  the  ambitious  project  of  restoring  the 
violated  rights  of  his  countrymen.  The  Fenian  move- 
ment had  satisfied  him  of  two  things — the  determina- 
tion of  his  people  never  to  acquiesce  in  their  humilia^ 
tion  and  subjection,  and  their  inability  successfully  to 
cope  in  any  revolutionary  uprising  with  the  trained 
and  thoroughly  equipped  battalions  of  the  British 
army.  This  realization  turned  his  thoughts  in  the  di- 
rection of  another  constitutional  agitation  looking  to 
the  restoration  of  the  Irish  parliament.  No  one,  per- 
haps, but  the  valiant  defender  of  the  Fenian  prisoners 
could  have  so  much  as  interested  the  Irish  people  in 
another  peaceful  plan  for  the  righting  of  their  v^rongs. 
The  Fenians  had  every  reason  to  love  Isaac  Butt  and 
to  concede  something  of  their  own  convictions  to  him. 
The  amnesty  movement  gave  him  an  opportunity  to 
blend  the  moderate  and  the  radical  elements  into  one 
common  movement.  The  disestablishment  of  the 
church  in  Ireland  had  aroused  the  ire  of  that  portion 
of  the  gentry  which  had  hitherto  declined  to  participate 
in  any  national  movement,  and  they  now  took  their 
revenge  by  insisting  that  the  government  might  as  well 
go  on  and  disconnect  the  two  countries.  When  the 
first  meeting  was  held  at  which  the  FIome-Rule  move- 
ment was  born  there  were  numerous  conservatives 
present  participating  actively  and  with  apparent  sin- 
cerity In  the  work  of  organization.  Among  the  more 
prominent  of  these  w^ere  the  conservative  lord  mayor 
of  Dublin,  and  Major  Knox,  the  conservative  propri- 
etor of  The  Irish  Times.  We  shall  find  these  conserv- 
atives dropping  out  as  they  found  their  resentment 
over  the  church  disestablishment  cooling,  but  the  new 
national  leader  anticipated  nothing  of  the  kind.    Thor- 


408  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

oughly  satisfied  that  the  conservatives  would  stick,  Butt 
made  his  appeal  to  the  revolutionary  or  Fenian  ele- 
ment. William  O'Brien,  in  his  Recollections,  tells  of 
a  banquet  in  Hood's  Hotel,  in  Great  Brunswick  Street, 
Dublin,  which  he  attended  in  the  Interest  of  the  Cork 
Herald,  and  which  was  addressed  by  Butt.  The  leader 
had  been  engaged  throughout  the  day  and  the  early 
part  of  the  evening  in  defending  In  the  courts  a  man 
who  had  fired  upon  a  Galway  landlord,  and  after  a 
splendid  fight,  had  succeeded  in  freeing  him.  He  ap- 
peared at  the  banquet  flushed  with  his  victory  and  in 
fine  fettle.  The  majority  of  the  men  gathered  about  the 
board  were  Fenians  and  their  friends,  and  to  these  Butt 
turned  In  a  speech  which  is  described  as  brilliantly 
eloquent  with  an  earnest  plea  that  they  give  him  a 
chance  to  demonstrate  what  could  be  accomplished  by  a 
constitutional  agitation.  Now  argumentative  and  now 
persuasive,  pathetic  and  passionate,  "fairly  burning 
with  the  divine  fire  of  eloquence,"  he  declared  that  if 
the  Fenians  would  support  him  in  a  constitutional 
movement  until  its  utter  futility  had  been  proved,  he 
would  then  give  way  to  the  revolutionary  element  and 
offer  his  own  life  to  the  service.  It  was  a  remarkable 
utterance,  and  throws  a  new  light  on  Butt's  political 
character. 

On  learning  that  O'Brien  had  taken  copious  notes 
with  the  view  to  printing  the  speech  in  the  Cork  Her- 
ald, Butt  importuned  him  to  destroy  the  notes,  and 
this  was  done.  Some  inklings  of  the  nature  of  the 
speech,  however,  reached  the  house  of  commons,  where 
attention  was  called  to  it,  but,  in  the  absence  of  any 
publication,  the  matter  was  dropped.  It  was  through 
this  attitude  toward  the  Fenians,  however,  in  connec- 


ISAAC    BUTT  409 

tion  with  the  conservative  dissatisfaction  over  the 
church  disestabhshment,  that  made  possible  the  organ- 
ization of  the  movement  which  Butt  v/as  to  pass  on  to 
Parnell.  The  movement  was  organized  at  the  Bilton 
Hotel,  Dublin,  May  nineteenth,  1870,  when  Butt  made 
the  principal  speech,  and  resolutions,  declaratory  of 
the  purposes  of  the  organization,  were  adopted  to  the 
effect  that  "it  is  the  opinion  of  this  meeting  that  the 
true  remedy  for  the  evils  of  Ireland  is  the  establish- 
ment of  an  Irish  parliament  with  full  control  over 
our  domestic  affairs.'^ 

Little  need  be  said  of  the  activities  of  the  new  or- 
ganization previous  to  1874  when  Gladstone  unex- 
pectedly dissolved  parliament  and  thereby  gave  Butt 
his  opportunity  for  gathering  around  him  a  nationalist 
party.  There  is  something  ineffably  pathetic  in  the 
situation  that  confronted  the  Irish  leader.  He  knew 
that  the  people  of  Ireland  were  with  him,  and  w^as  con- 
vinced that  with  a  militant  Home-Rule  candidate  in 
each  constituency  in  Ireland  he  could  sweep  the  coun- 
try. The  difficulties  in  the  way  were  of  a  financial 
nature.  The  movement  was  without  sufficient  funds. 
In  those  days  elections  were  extremely  expensive  and 
there  were  but  a  few  hundred  poimds  in  the  Home- 
Rule  fund.  The  Irish-Americans  had  not  been  en- 
listed at  this  time  in  the  work.  Not  only  was  the  party 
without  funds,  but,  at  this  time  of  all  times,  Butt's  per- 
sonal creditors  became  embarrassingly  importunate. 
There  is  something  infinitely  pathetic,  not  to  say  tragic, 
in  the  picture  given  us  in  O'Brien's  Recollections  of 
Butt's  appearance  at  Limerick,  where  he  was  the  Home- 
Rule  candidate,  only  to  find  that  a  bankruptcy  messen- 
ger had  been  despatched  to  Limerick  from  London  to 


410  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

arrest  him  for  debt.  A  great  crowd  had  assembled  at 
the  theater,  the  announcement  was  made  that  the 
Irish  leader  was  "unavoidably  absent,"  and  Butt  has- 
tened away  to  Killaloe,  eighteen  miles  distant,  to  escape 
his  pursuer.  There  is  something  im.mensely  amusing 
in  the  situation  which  developed  in  that  village  where 
Butt  hoped  to  escape  notice.  The  word  spread  rapidly 
that  the  popular  leader  was  in  the  village,  and  within  a 
startlingly  short  time  the  band  was  out  in  the  streets  and 
a  torch-light  procession  marched  to  the  hotel  to  present 
him  with  an  address.  There  poor  Butt  was  compelled 
to  sit,  nervously  twirling  his  glasses,  listening  to  the 
reading  of  an  interminable  address,  and  fearing  every 
moment  the  advent  of  the  messenger  from  London.  In- 
deed he  just  had  timic  to  stammicr  a  few  words  of  grat- 
itude and  appreciation  and  to  escape  through  the  back 
yard  of  the  hotel  when  the  officer  reached  the  scene 
only  to  find  that  the  bird  had  flown. 

Under  such  disheartening  circumstances  Butt  did 
the  best  he  could.  Wherever  he  could  find  a  genuine 
Home  Ruler  w^ho  was  able  to  defray  his  own  election 
expenses  he  eagerly  pounced  upon  him  and  dragged 
him  into  the  arena.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  found 
the  opportunity  to  enlist  in  the  service  of  the  country 
several  splendid  men  such  as  A.  M.  Sullivan,  Richard 
Power,  and  the  stern  irrepressible  Biggar,  who  was 
later  to  be  such  a  thorn  in  his  side.  Along  with  these, 
however,  he  was  compelled  to  accept  the  candidacies  of 
many  who  w^ere  mere  policy  men,  discredited  Whigs, 
political  opportunists,  soldiers  of  fortune,  old  men  who 
had  been  political  failures,  young  men  eager  to  sell 
themselves  to  England.  Out  of  the  one  hundred  three 
Irish  members  he  succeeded  in  surrounding  himself 


ISAAC    BUTT  411 

with  a  Home-Rule  party  of  sixty — but  such  a  party ! 
William  O'Brien  has  aptly  characterized  it  as  "an  in- 
congruous and  barbarous  mosaic."  And  yet  it  was 
this  party,  incongruous  as  it  was,  which  made  it  possi- 
ble for  Parnell  a  few  years  later  to  build  up  a  militant 
organization. 

And  now  a  word  as  to  Butt's  idea  of  Home  Rule. 
It  was  not  precisely  the  same  idea  which  was  accepted 
later  on  by  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  It  is  but  fair  to 
Butt  to  describe  his  conception  as  much  as  possible 
after  the  fashion  of  one  of  his  followers.  Among  the 
brilliant  characters  \vho  shared  Butt's  view^s  to  a  large 
extent  was  the  satirical,  sarcastic  and  eloquent  F.  H. 
O'Donnell,  who  has  recently  given  to  the  world  his 
fascinating  and  rather  startling  History  of  the  Irish 
Parliamentary  Party.  It  is  difficult  for  any  American 
to  read  Mr.  O'Donnell  with  patience.  He  makes  no 
effort  to  conceal  his  profound  contempt  for  Parnell. 
He  evidently  despises  Americans  of  Irish  extraction. 
The  contribution  of  American  money  to  the  campaign 
coffers  of  the  Home-Rule  party  he  looks  upon  as  de- 
grading to  the  Irish.  Indeed  one  is  compelled,  while 
paying  tribute  to  O'Donnell's  genius,  to  conclude  that 
he  writes  with  the  splenic  fury  of  a  disappointed  poli- 
tician who  feels  that  he  was  set  aside  by  men  of  infe- 
rior mentality.  However,  he  looked  upon  the  Butt 
movement  as  a  statesmanlike  movement  and  upon 
Butt  himself  as  a  dignified  high-thinking  statesman. 

We  can  do  no  better  perhaps  in  describing  Butt's 
proposed  federal  system  than  to  quote  from  O'Don- 
nell's work. 

"In  precise  English  and  with  a  wealth  of  illustration,'* 
he  says  (page  48),  "Butt  and  his  friends  in  the  Home 


412  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Rule  League  maintained  the  necessity  of  national  liber- 
ties for  a  common  empire.  In  a  federal  arrangement 
which  would  recognize  the  full  self-government  of  Ire- 
land in  all  Irish  matters,  according  to  the  ancient  Irish 
constitution  of  king,  lords  and  commons — no  Gladstonian 
single-chambers  and  sub-colonial  assemblies  for  him — 
there  lay,  according  to  Mr.  Butt,  all  the  national  guaran- 
ties required  by  Ireland;  and  in  the  maintenance  of  an 
imperial  parliament  for  imperial  and  British  affairs  there 
lay  all  the  imperial  guaranties  required  by  the  united 
kingdoms  of  Ireland  and  Great  Britain.  So  far  as  im- 
perial affairs  were  concerned,  Mr.  Butt  insisted  upon  the 
complete  and  undiminished  participation  of  the  Irish  rep- 
resentation in  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  common  em- 
pire." 

Again  of  this  plan  Mr.  O'Donnell  says  (page  49)  : 

"No  British  statesman,  neither  Chamberlain  nor  Rose- 
berry  nor  another,  can  ever  enunciate  principles  of  em- 
pire which  can  substantially  change  for  the  better  the 
scheme  of  national  and  imperial  federation  which  Isaac 
Butt  laid  before  the  assembly  of  Ireland  and  Irish  opin- 
ion forty  years  ago." 

The  arguments  advanced  by  Butt  in  advocacy  of  the 
federal  idea  were  threefold :  first,  it  was  necessary  to 
the  end  that  Ireland  should  have  a  part  in  the  vast 
colonial  system  of  the  empire  which  had  been  built  up 
to  a  considerable  degree  by  Irish  valor  and  ingenuity; 
second,  that  without  such  a  system  the  Irish  people 
would  be  hopelessly  separated  from  the  millions  of 
Irish  living  in  England  and  the  British  colonies;  and 
third,  that  without  it  it  would  be  impossible  for  the 
Irish  in  the  fatherland  ever  to  be  of  service  to  the 
Irish  in  England. 


ISAAC    BUTT  413 

On  another  point  Butt  was  adamant  where  Parnell 
was  wilhng  to  yield — he  insisted  upon  two  chambers 
in  the  restored  Irish  parhament,  and  that  the  Irish 
should  retain  a  representation  in  the  imperial  parlia- 
ment. It  is  the  contention  of  O'Donnell  that  this  lat- 
ter phase  was  responsible  for  the  support  given  the 
Home-Rule  movement  by  the  Irish  in  England.  It 
will  be  noted  by  any  student  of  Butt's  life  that  he 
differed  temperamentally  from  Parnell  in  that  he  was 
essentially  conservative  while  Parnell  was  essentially 
a  radical.  It  is  quite  certain  that  Butt  would  never 
have  countenanced  the  land  movement  of  Davitt.  He 
drew  in  horror  from  anything  that  smacked  of  revo- 
lution. He  had  the  old  conservative  idea  of  the  sanc- 
tity of  property.  O'Donnell  has  probably  given  an 
accurate  idea  of  Butt's  mental  processes  in  the  follow- 
ing passage : 

"It  was  perfectly  clear  to  us  that  we  wanted  to  restore 
the  Irish  constitution  ;  that  no  single  chamber  could  pos- 
sibly be  a  parliament  of  Grattan,  nor  could  possibly  be 
any  guarantee  to  the  interest  of  property  and  conserva- 
tism; that  on  the  other  hand  the  existence  of  the  house 
of  lords,  possessed  of  all  the  rights  of  the  English  cham- 
ber, was  the  best  possible  security  against  spoliatory  leg- 
islation. It  might  occasionally  be  a  clog  upon  some  real 
reforms.  But  better  a  conservative  clog  than  a  socialist 
menace  and  a  Jacobin  convention." 

The  movement  of  Butt  also  differed  from  that  of 
Parnell  in  that  the  former  proposed  to  keep  the  Home- 
Rule  party  absolutely  free  and  independent  of  any 
outside  power  or  influence  such  as  the  Eenians,  the 
Land  League,  and  the  American  affiliation.  Thus  we 
find,  that  the  very  features  of  Butt's  policy,  which 


414  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

O'Donnell  praises  as  statesmanlike  and  superior  to  the 
Pamell  plan,  are  the  very  features  that  have  made  it 
possible  for  the  Home-Rule  party  in  parliament  to 
force  concessions  from  the  British  parliament. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  his  parliamentary  activity.  We 
find  Butt  taking  advantage  of  the  earliest  opportunity 
in  the  parliament  of  1874  for  bringing  forward  his 
Home-Rule  propaganda  in  a  speech  which  has  never 
been  surpassed  probably  in  its  brilliancy  or  exhaustive 
treatment  of  the  subject  from  every  possible  point  of 
view.  This  speech  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the 
house  of  commons,  but  it  made  a  more  abiding  impres- 
sion upon  the  masses  of  the  English  people,  and  espe- 
cially upon  the  working  classes  of  the  industrial  cen- 
ters of  England.  O'Donnell  tells  us  that  in  traveling 
about  over  England  a  little  later  he  was  astonished  to 
find  the  number  of  English  artisans  of  the  higher  or- 
der who  had  preserv'ed  Butt's  speech  and  had  mastered 
and  acquiesced  in  its  reasoningr 

It  was  the  plan  of  Butt  to  crA^stallize  the  proposals 
of  his  party  in  a  number  of  bills  to  be  brought  before 
the  house  and  exhaustively  discussed.  It  is  recorded 
that  the  leader  took  upon  himself  to  a  large  degree  the 
preparation  of  these  measures.  Year  after  year  he 
pursued  this  policy.  At  first  the  English  were  amazed 
at  the  effrontery  of  Butt  in  daring  to  demand  any  of 
the  time  of  the  British  parliament  for  the  discussion 
of  Irish  affairs,  but,  as  they  followed  his  methods,  and 
found  that  he  proposed  a  moderate,  conventional  dis- 
cussion, and  that  his  manner  of  discussion  was  "gen- 
tlemanly" and  in  "good  tone,"  they  ultimately  became 
reconciled  to  the  Home-Rule  program,  and  after  lis- 
tening with  comparative  patience  to  the  speeches,  they 


ISAAC    BUTT  415 

proceeded  to  vote  down  the  Irish  measures  with  good- 
natured  unanimity.  The  Enghsh  parties  were  agreed 
upon  one  proposition — that  Home  Rule  was  a  pleasant 
diversion  and  nothing  more.  The  English  press  of 
those  days  loved  to  poke  gentle  fun  at  Butt  for  his  au- 
dacity in  submitting  a  Home-Rule  plan.  The  Daily 
Telegraph  suggested  that  of  course  Mr.  Butt  had  no 
idea  that  the  English  people  would  receive  his  pro- 
posals seriously.  And  in  the  meanwhile  conditions 
were  growing  rapidly  worse  in  Ireland. 

It  is  an  interesting  sidelight  on  Butt's  leadership 
that  he  took  an  especial  interest  in  the  land  question. 
He  directed  the  attention  to  the  necessity  of  land  re- 
form before  the  days  of  Davitt.  It  became  an  obses- 
sion with  him.  His  greatest  interest  was  taken  in  his 
land  bills.  Ultimately  his  plans  were  vindicated,  but 
not  until  the  gentle  leader  was  sleeping  in  a  graveyard 
in  Donegal.  During  this  period  he  wrote  many  illumi- 
nating pamphlets  on  the  rights  of  the  tenants.  After 
the  passage  of  the  Land  Act  of  1870,  which  English 
statesmen,  woefully  ignorant  of  Irish  conditions,  hon- 
estly thought  was  a  complete  solution  of  the  problem. 
Butt  wrote  an  exhaustive  book  on  the  act,  which  dem- 
onstrated the  utter  worthlessness  of  the  measure.  The 
English  press  joked  the  author  upon  the  absurdity  of 
his  conclusions  and  insisted  that  the  tenants  in  Ireland 
were  not  only  highly  prosperous,  but  entirely  satisfied. 
Such  was  the  insolent  attitude  of  the  conqueror  to- 
ward the  sufferings  of  the  conquered. 

In  his  work  on  The  Irish  People  and  the  Irish 
Land  Butt  has  given  a  touching  picture  of  the  condi- 
tions in  Ireland  which  directed  his  great  heart  toward 
the  land  question : 


416  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

"Let  me  say  once  for  all  how  I  came  to  write.  Two 
years  ago  I  had  formed  views  of  the  land  question,  as, 
I  suppose,  most  persons  in  my  position  have.  I  was 
satisfied  of  that  which  lies  on  the  very  surface — that  in- 
security of  tenure  is  a  great  evil.  I  was  convinced  that 
compensation  for  tenants'  improvements  was  just  and 
right ;  but  when  I  saw  the  people  flying  in  masses  from 
their  homes  I  felt  that  really  to  understand  the  question 
we  must  go  deeper  than  all  this — that  there  must  be  some 
mischief  deeply  rooted  in  our  social  system,  which,  in  a 
country  blessed  with  the  advantages  like  ours,  produced 
results  so  strangely  contrary  to  ever}1:hing  which  the  laws 
which  regulate  the  history  of  nations  or  the  conduct  of 
classes  or  individuals  might  lead  us  to  expect. 

"An  accident  turned  my  thoughts  more  intensely  in 
this  direction.  Traveling  on  the  Southern  railroad,  I 
witnessed  one  of  those  scenes  too  common  in  our  coun- 
try, but  which,  I  believe,  no  familiarity  can  make  any 
person  of  feeling  witness  without  emotion.  The  station 
was  crowded  with  emigrants  and  their  friends  who  came 
to  see  them  off.  There  was  nothing  unusual  in  the  oc- 
currence— nothing  that  is  not  often  to  be  seen.  Old  men 
walked  slowly,  and  almost  hesitatingly,  to  the  carriages 
that  were  to  take  them  away  from  the  country  to  which 
they  were  never  to  return.  Railway  porters  placed  in 
the  train  strange  boxes  and  chests  of  every  shape  and 
size,  sometimes  even  small  articles  of  furniture,  w*hich 
told  that  their  owners  were  taking  with  them  their  little 
all.  In  the  midst  of  them  a  brother  and  a  sister  bade 
each  other  their  last  farewell — ^the  mother  pressed  pas- 
sionately to  her  breast  the  son  whom  she  shall  never  see 
again.  Women  carried  or  led  to  their  places  in  the  car- 
riages little  children,  who  looked  around  as  if  they  knew 
not  what  all  this  meant,  but  wept  because  they  saw  their 
mothers  weeping.  Strong  men  turned  aside  to  brush  aside 
the  not  unmanly  tear.  As  the  train  began  to  move  there 
was  the  uncontrollable  rush  of  relatives  crowding  down 
to  give  the  last  handshakes.  The  railway  servants  pushed 
them  back — we  moved  on  more  rapidly — and  then  rose 
from  the  groups  w^e  left  behind  a  strange  mingled  cry 


ISAAC    BUTT  417 

of  wild  farewells,  and  prayers,  and  blessings,  and  that 
melancholy  wail  of  Irish  sorrow  which  no  one  who  has 
ever  heard  will  ever  forget — and  we  rushed  on  with  our 
freight  of  sorrowing  and  reluctant  exiles  across  a  plain 
of  fertility  unsurpassed  perhaps  in  any  European  soil. 
It  was  a  light  matter,  but  there  was  something  in  that 
picture — close  to  us  rose  the  picturesque  ruins  which 
seemed  to  tell  us  from  the  past  that  there  were  days 
when  an  Irish  race  had  lived,  and  not  lived  in  poverty, 
upon  that  very  plain. 

"These  were  scenes  which  surely  no  Irishman  could 
see  without  emotion.  The  transient  feeling  they  may 
excite  is  but  of  little  use  except  as  it  may  be  suggestive 
of  thought.  It  was  impossible  not  to  ask  why  were  these 
people  thus  flying  from  their  homes,  deserting  that  rich 
soil.  I  could  not  but  feel  that  no  satisfactory  solution 
of  the  question  had  yet  been  given.  I  asked  myself  if  it 
were  not  a  reproach  to  those  among  us  whom  God  had 
raised  a  little  above  the  people  by  the  advantages  of  in- 
tellect and  education  if  we  gave  no  real  earnest  thought 
to  such  an  inquiry ;  and  I  formed  a  purpose — I  almost 
made  to  myself  a  vow — that  I  would  employ  as  far  as 
I  could  whatever  little  power  I  had  acquired  in  investi- 
gating facts  in  endeavoring  to  trace  the  strange  mystery 
to  its  origin." 

In  pursuance  of  this  vo\v,  Butt,  in  session  after  ses- 
sion, pressed  the  land  question  upon  the  imperial  par- 
liament, only  to  be  laughed  at  for  his  pains.  It  was 
during  the  session  of  1876  that  he  made  his  most  stub- 
born fight,  and  delivered  his  most  forceful  speeches. 

The  utter  refusal  of  the  English  seriously  to  con- 
sider Irish  affairs  impressed  upon  Butt  the  necessity  of 
some  form  of  obstruction  before  Parnell  and  Biggar 
had  commenced  their  obstructive  tactics  with  which 
the  public  associates  their  names  as  the  originators. 
During  the  session  of  1875,  Butt  resorted  to  a  mild 


418  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

form  of  obstruction,  mild  in  the  light  of  the  Parnell 
tactics,  and  still  provocative  enough  to  lead  the  Annual 
Register  of  that  year  to  complain  that  "there  was 
much  obstruction  of  legislation  because  of  the  debates 
on  the  Irish  coercion  bill."  And  yet  nothing  was  ac- 
complished. The  Irish  bills  were  presented,  spoken 
upon,  defeated — session  after  session.  The  "barbar- 
ous mosaic"  of  a  party  caused  the  leader  endless  worry. 
The  people  in  Ireland  began  to  despair  of  constitu- 
tional methods.  As  early  as  1865,  Butt  had  declared 
at  a  dinner  at  Canon  Rice's  at  Queenstown,  that  Ire- 
land would  have  home  rule  within  ten  years,  and  now 
the  people  who  had  consented  to  the  trial  of  a  consti- 
tutional agitation,  were  growing  impatient.  The  gen- 
tle leader  lacked  the  power  of  discipline.  His  very 
good  nature  was  his  undoing.  His  private  troubles 
still  pursued  him,  and  while,  according  to  T.  P.  O'Con- 
nor, in  his  Parnell  Movement,  he  still  "made  many 
sacrifices  on  the  altar  of  the  gods  of  indulgence,"  he 
never  drank  to  excess.  His  creditors  were  more  and 
more  importunate.  He  was  unable  to  devote  his  whole 
time  to  the  cause.  He  was  compelled  to  practise  law 
to  escape  the  debtors'  prison,  and,  in  his  old  age,  when 
he  had  grown  bulky  and  found  it  uncomfortable  to 
travel,  he  was  forced  to  make  hurried  trips  to  the 
courts  in  Dublin,  reading  his  briefs  on  the  train  or 
boat.  Had  he  possessed  something  of  Parnell's  cold- 
ness and  hardness  and  tendency  to  apply  the  whip  to 
subordinates,  he  might  have  forced  a  more  generous 
support  from  his  party,  but  such  a  policy  was  foreign 
to  his  nature. 

Unfortunately,  the  militant  element  in  Ireland  had 
lost  faith  in  the  effectiveness  of  his  leadership.     The 


ISAAC   BUTT  419 

Fenians  loved  him,  but  felt  that  he  was  too  gentle  for 
the  purpose.  The  admiration  which  the  English  poli- 
ticians felt  for  him  reacted  against  him.  A  new  man 
had  entered  the  ranks  of  the  Irish  party — a  man  who 
hated  England  and  w^as  hated  by  Englishmen,  a  hard 
driver,  a  daring  politician  who  was  willing  to  skirt  the 
edge  of  sedition  itself,  and  he  had  commenced  the  ob- 
structive tactics  which  were  to  throw  the  house  of  com- 
mons into  turmoil,  to  convert  the  sedate  house  into  a 
bedlam,  to  prevent  the  transaction  of  business,  and  the 
radicals  in  Ireland  were  looking  to  him.  With  such 
tactics.  Butt  was  temperamentally  unable  to  agree.  His 
health  was  now  failing.  He  went  about  the  house, 
worn  and  dejected.  His  mind  was  as  brilliant  as  ever, 
and  his  eloquence  as  persuasive,  but  his  party  was  slip- 
ping away.  And  then  came  the  tragedy.  He  was  dis- 
placed as  president  of  the  Home-Rule  Confederation  of 
Great  Britain  by  Parnell.  He  never  recovered  from 
the  blow,  for  it  came  suddenly  and  unexpectedly.  He 
remained  on  the  platform  a  while,  and  then,  with  the 
remark  that  he  had  to  go  to  Dublin  on  important  busi- 
ness, he  excused  himself.  One  of  the  men  responsible 
for  his  displacement  followed  him  into  the  corridor 
and  told  him  how  sorry  he  was  that  it  was  found  nec- 
essary to  select  Parnell  because  of  his  advanced  policy. 
The  eyes  of  the  old  man  filled  with  tears.  *'Ah,  I 
never  thought  the  Irishmen  of  England  would  do  this 
to  me,"  he  said.  The  man  who  had  helped  to  do  the 
work  was  unable  to  reply.  And  then  Butt  did  the 
characteristic  thing — the  kindly  thing.  He  took  the 
hand  of  the  man  who  had  struck  him  and  pressed  it 
warmly  as  a  token  that  all  was  forgiven. 

His  last  public  appearance  was  at  Molesworth  hall 


420  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

on  February  fourth,  1879,  while  he  was  engaged  in 
the  famous  case  of  Bagot  v.  Bagot.  He  was  worn 
and  sad,  the  stamp  of  death  upon  his  kindly  face.  And 
now  must  be  recorded  a  brutal  thing — some,  with 
whom  he  had  wrought  so  well  and  fought  so  long,  ig- 
nored him.  In  three  months  he  was  dead.  The  end 
came  at  Dundrum,  county  Dublin,  May  fifth,  1879. 
He  was  buried  at  Stranorla,  in  his  native  county  of 
Donegal.  And  then,  the  whole  of  Ireland  mourned 
the  death  of  one  of  the  purest,  noblest,  tenderest  of 
her  sons. 

VI 

Isaac  Butt  was  in  many  respects  a  marvelous  man. 
None  of  the  Irish  leaders  was  so  profound  in  learn- 
ing. Few  were  more  eloquent.  None  was  more  lova- 
ble. The  fact  that  many  Englishmen  loved  him  was 
not  evidence  of  disloyalty  on  his  part  to  Ireland.  No 
one  could  know  him  and  not  love  him.  Gladstone 
admired  him,  and  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  who 
loved  few  men,  was  fond  of  him.  One  man  who 
hated  him  and  did  not  know  him  changed  his  opinion 
of  him  when  he  found  that  Butt's  sister  could  not 
speak  of  his  goodness  with  an  tmbroken  voice. 

As  an  orator  he  was  noted  for  his  fluency,  the  pro- 
fundity of  his  thought,  his  clearness  of  statement,  his 
persuasiveness,  his  logic.  No  orator  since  O'Connell 
has  had  a  greater  effect  upon  an  Irish  jury  or  on  an 
Irish  crowd.  An  illustration  of  his  manner  of  appeal- 
ing to  the  emotional  side  of  a  jury  may  be  given  from 
his  speech  in  the  case  of  Clark  v.  Knox,  in  which  his 
client,  Clark,  was  suing  for  the  breaking  up  of  his 
home  through  eviction.    A  great  number  of  evictions 


ISAAC    BUTT  421 

had  recently  taken  place,  and  the  attention  of  the 
whole  country  was  centered  upon  the  trial  at  the 
Tullamore  Assize.  The  speech  of  Butt  was  considered 
a  wonderful  performance  by  all  who  heard  it,  and  at 
the  conclusion  the  court  room  rang  with  applause. 
Speaking  of  the  meaning  of  home  he  said: 

"When  I  addressed  you  on  Saturday  I  only  knew  that 
you  were  jurors.  I  know  now  your  position  and  ranks 
in  the  county.  I  can  sympathize  with  the  feelings  of 
men  like  my  client.  I  may  venture  to  say  that  I  know 
something  of  the  feelings  of  the  class  to  which  you,  gen- 
tlemen of  the  jury,  belong;  and  from  a  jury  drawn  from 
that  class  I  will  ask  compensation  for  the  sufferings  of 
the  peasant  with  more  confidence  than  I  would  ask  it 
from  men  of  an  inferior  rank.  The  homes  of  these  ten- 
ants are  made  desolate.  Some  of  you  will  return  to- 
night to  your  ancestral  homes,  and  far  off  be  the  day 
when  you  and  your  children  will  be  disturbed  in  those 
homes.  Some  of  you,  perhaps,  are  thinking  of  the  re- 
ception that  awaits  you  in  those  happy  homes. 

"  '  'Tis  sweet  to  hear  the  honest  watchdog's  bark 
Bay  deepmouthed  welcome  as  we  draw  near  home ; 

'Tis  sweet  to  know  that  there  are  eyes  will  mark 
Our  coming  and  grow  brighter  when  we  come.' 

*'You  will  return  to  homes  in  which  elegance  and  re- 
finement will  give  grace  and  charm  to  the  endearment 
of  domestic  life.  But  that  is  not  what  we  value  in  wife 
and  child  and  sacred  home.  There  was  a  welcome  as 
warm  and  as  cordial  awaited  these  poor  men  in  the  ten- 
ements, now  thrown  out  upon  the  walls  of  Rathcore,  and 
there  were  children  there  that  looked  out  as  fondly 
through  the  neighboring  darkness  for  the  returning  of 
father.  And  the  blaze  of  the  hearth  threw  a  Hght  as 
genial  and  bright  upon  the  little  group  that  will  never 
gather  more  around  the  fireside. 


422  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

"And  you,  gentlemen,  are  pretty  capable  of  estimating 
that  the  sacred  endearments  of  home  were  more  to  these 
men  than  to  us,  for  it  is  a  dispensation  of  God  that  pov- 
erty, as  one  of  its  compensations,  brings  out  the  affec- 
tions of  the  human  heart ;  and  the  poor  family  that  share 
the  scanty  meal,  at  which  each  stints  himself  that  the 
others  may  have  more,  may  enjoy  a  happiness  in  that 
meal  unknown  at  the  boards  where  luxury  abounds." 

In  the  preparation  of  his  speeches,  he  left  little  of 
the  principal  features  to  the  so-called  "inspiration  of 
the  moment.''  The  writer  is  indebted  to  John  Devoy, 
of  the  Gaelic-American,  for  an  interesting  story  of  his 
method.  It  was  his  custom  to  write  his  speeches  out 
in  full.  This  he  did  with  great  rapidity,  being  as  fluent 
with  his  pen  as  with  his  tongue.  This  done,  he  read 
over  what  he  had  written  very  carefully,  tore  the 
manuscript  to  pieces,  and  threw  it  away.  On  one 
occasion,  his  secretary  carefully  collected  the  pieces, 
put  them  together,  and  wath  the  manuscript  in  hand, 
followed  Butt  in  the  delivery  of  his  speech,  and  found, 
to  his  amazement,  that  the  orator  had  not  deviated 
from  the  written  speech  to  the  extent  of  more  than  a 
hundred  words. 

No  better  can  this  brief  study  of.  Isaac  Butt  be 
brought  to  a  close  than  by  quoting  a  passage  from  his 
National  Conference  speech  of  1873,  which  is  at  once 
an  illustration  of  his  most  effective  style  and  an  in- 
vocation from  the  grave  in  Donegal  to  the  Irish  peo- 
ple: 

"Let  me  say  it — I  do  proudly — that  I  was  one  of  those 
who  did  something  for  this  cause.  Over  a  torn  and  dis- 
tracted country,  a  country  agitated  by  dissensions,  weak- 
ened by  distrust,  we  raised  the  banner  on  which  we  em- 


ISAAC    BUTT  423 

blazoned  the  magic  words,  'Home  Rule/  We  raised  it 
with  a  feeble  hand.  Tremblingly,  with  hesitation,  almost 
stealthily,  we  unfurled  that  banner  to  the  breeze.  But 
wherever  the  legend  we  have  emblazoned  on  its  folds 
was  seen,  the  heart  of  the  people  moved  to  its  words 
and  the  soul  of  the  nation  felt  their  power  and  their  spell. 
Those  words  were  passed  from  man  to  man  along  the 
valleys  and  the  hillsides.  Everywhere  men,  even  those 
who  had  been  despairing,  turned  to  that  banner  with  con- 
fidence and  hope. 

"Thus  far  we  have  borne  it.  It  is  now  for  you  to 
bear  it  on  with  more  energy  and  more  strength  and  with 
renewed  vigor.  We  hand  it  over  to  you  in  this  gather- 
ing of  the  nation.  But  oh,  let  no  unholy  hands  approach 
it.  Let  no  one  come  to  the  help  of  our  country,  or  dare 
to  lay  his  hand  upon  the  ark  of  her  magnificent  and 
awful  cause,  who  is  not  prepared  never,  never  to  desert 
that  banner  till  it  flies  proudly  over  the  portals  of  that 
*01d  House  and  Home' — that  old  house  which  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  memories  of  great  Irishmen,  and  has  been 
the  scene  of  many  glorious  triumphs.  Even  while  the 
blaze  of  those  glories  is  at  this  moment  throwing  its 
splendor  over  the  memory  of  us  all,  I  believe  in  my  soul 
that  the  parliament  of  regenerated  Ireland  will  achieve 
triumphs  more  glorious,  more  lasting,  more  sanctified  and 
holy  than  any  by  which  her  old  parliament  illumined  the 
annals  of  our  country  and  our  race." 


IX 

CHARLES    STEWART   PARNELL 

The  Obstruction  of  British  Legislation;  the  Home-Rule  Battles; 
the  Land  League  Fights;  the  Enlistment  of  Irish- 
Americans  in  the  Struggle 

IT  was  just  at  the  time  the  bottom  was  falling  out 
of  the  Butt  experiment  in  Irish  politics  that  a  new 
man  appeared  upon  the  scene.  Of  all  the  leaders  in 
the  century-old  battle  for  Irish  liberties  he  was  the 
least  Irish  in  his  temperament  and  genius.  He  lacked 
the  magnetism  of  O'Connell,  the  eloquence  of  Grattan, 
the  fire  and  dash  of  Meagher,  the  lovable  qualities  of 
Butt — and  he  was  everything  that  the  typical  Irishman 
is  not — taciturn,  calculating  and  retiring.  He  studied 
the  political  situation  as  he  would  that  of  a  chess-board. 
He  saw  the  necessity  of  united  action.  He  understood 
the  importance  of  consolidating  all  the  patriotic  ele- 
ments into  one  common  army.  He  knew  that  the  par- 
liamentarian could  do  nothing  without  a  militant  force 
behind  him,  and  that  the  militant  could  accomplish 
nothing  except  through  semi-constitutional  methods. 
Coldly,  calculatingly,  sagaciously  he  set  to  work  to 
find  a  common  ground,  and  he  found  it  in  a  plan  to 
introduce  militancy  Into  the  Irish  party  in  the  house  of 
commons.  Grasping  eagerly  at  every  revolutionary 
element  in  Ireland  and  attaching  it  as  a  fighting  force 

424 


CHARLES    STEWART   PARNELL      425 

behind  the  parhamentary  party,  he  soon  created  an  or- 
ganization that  startled  the  ministers  of  the  empire. 
He  turned  EngHsh  weapons  against  the  English  by  ob- 
structing English  legislation,  and  forced  the  govern- 
ment to  deal  with  the  Irish  party.  He  organized 
the  Irish  exiles  of  the  industrial  centers  of  England 
and  attached  them  to  the  Irish  cause  and  thus  intro- 
duced the  Irish  question  into  English  politics.  He 
rallied  about  him  a  party  of  sufficient  magnitude  to 
hold  the  balance  of  power  in  the  house  of  commons, 
and  he  played  with  cabinets  with  the  ease  of  a  cat  play- 
ing with  a  mouse.  Upsetting  ministries,  defying  gov- 
ernments, obstructing  legislation,  threatening  revolu- 
tion, establishing  the  boycott,  skirting  sedition,  he 
turned  parliament  into  a  bedlam,  disorganized  and  dis- 
rupted parties,  and  made  Ireland  a  vital  force  in  the 
affairs  of  the  empire.  He  introduced  a  new  method 
into  the  Irish  fight.  He  created  a  movement  that  could 
not  be  shot  or  incarcerated  or  coerced.  He  never  com- 
promised, he  never  conciliated,  he  never  trusted  the 
enemy — he  fought!  And  before  he  fell  a  victim  to 
his  own  personal  folly,  he  had  introduced  Fenianism 
into  parliament,  and  injected  parliamentarianism  into 
the  Fenians.  Man  of  mystery,  he  moves  across  the 
page  of  history  a  calm,  silent,  saturnine  figure — and 
posterity  instinctively  uncovers  with  mingled  fear  and 
admiration.    Such  in  brief  is  Charles  Stewart  Parnell. 


While  wandering  about  in  his  travels,  John  Henry 
Parnell,  scion  of  a  house  famous  in  the  political  and 
literary  history  of  Ireland,  lingered  long  enough  in 


426  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Washington  to  lose  his  heart  to  the  brilHant  and  fiery 
daughter  of  Charles  Stewart,  a  gallant  admiral  of  the 
American  navy.  A  strange  match,  in  some  respects, 
for  he  was  utterly  without  ambition,  and  she  was  in- 
stinctively a  lover  of  power.  Between  the  two  there 
was  one  common  obsession — an  inveterate,  ineradica- 
ble hatred  of  England.  Returning  wath  his  bride  to 
Ireland,  the  traveler  retired  to  his  ancestral  seat  at 
Avondale,  near  the  quaint  little  village  of  R-athdrum, 
and  settled  down  to  the  uneventful  life  of  a  country 
gentleman.  The  situation  was  pleasant  enough.  The 
house  itself,  v/hile  not  so  imposing  as  others,  pos- 
sessed the  aristocratic  dignity  of  a  baronial  mansion. 
Many  men  of  genius  had  passed  in  and  out  its  por- 
tals. In  the  little  gallery,  above  the  great  hall,  bands 
had  once  played  to  stately  dances.  On  the  wall  of  the 
hall  hung  a  picture  of  a  scene  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons— Curran  in  one  of  his  eloquent  moments.  From 
the  windows  one  could  see  the  poetic  little  river  of 
Avonmore  winding  its  way  through  the  m^eadows,  and 
beyond  loomed  the  picturesque  hills  of  Wicklow. 
Within  easy  walking  distance  was  the  beautiful  vale  of 
Avoca — the  "sweet  vale  of  Avoca"  sung  by  Moore. 
And  it  w^as  here,  in  this  old  house,  amid  these  exquisite 
pastoral  scenes,  beloved  of  painters  and  poets,  that 
Charles  Stewart  Parnell  w^as  born  on  June  twenty- 
seven,  1846. 

The  mystery  which  enfolds  the  latter  life  of  the 
great  Irish  leader  is  not  absent  from  his  childhood. 
Delicate,  morbidly  sensitive,  nervous,  he  was  never- 
theless vivacious  and  cheerful  and  passionately  de- 
voted to  the  members  of  his  family.  He  inherited  his 
father's  devotion  to  home  and  his  partiality  to  seclu- 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      427 

sion.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  was  especially  im- 
pressed by  the  brilliancy  of  his  ancestors.  It  is  hardly 
probable  that  he  ever  gave  a  passing  glance  at  the  elfish 
figure  of  the  eloquent  Curran.  The  poems  of  Thomas 
Parnell,  the  speeches  of  Sir  John  Parnell — for  these  he 
cared  nothing.  His  boyhood  seemiS  to  have  been  given 
up  largely  to  games  and  fighting. 

It  was  in  his  sixth  year  that  he  made  his  first  ac- 
quaintance with  the  England  he  so  thoroughly  hated, 
when  he  was  sent  to  a  boarding  school  in  Somerset- 
shire, and  it  was  during  these  years  that  his  intense 
hatred  for  the  Ehglish  people  first  manifested  itself. 
His  preparatory  course  was  characterized  by  a  stub- 
born insubordination,  utter  idleness  and  indifference. 
He  took  no  pains  to  conceal  his  dislike  of  his  Enghsh 
schoolmates,  and  they  were  equally  frank  in  their 
manifestations  of  contempt.  Among  the  instructors 
he  was  as  heartily  disliked  as  among  the  students. 
The  whole  of  his  scholastic  interest  appears  to  have 
been  centered  on  mathematics,  and  in  this  line  he  ex- 
celled. Reserved,  cold,  repellent,  he  went  his  way 
cherishing  his  hatred  of  the  English. 

In  his  nineteenth  year  he  was  entered  at  Magdalen 
College,  Cambridge,  and  here  he  remained  four  years 
without  distinguishing  himself,  and  left  without  tak- 
ing his  degree.  His  hate  for  the  English,  which  must 
have  been  an  inherited  hate,  because  he  knew  prac- 
tically nothing  of  the  history  of  the  oppression  of  his 
race,  was  only  intensified  at  Camibridge.  He  had  as 
little  to  do  with  the  English  students  as  possible. 
*'These  English,"  he  said  to  his  brother,  "do  not  like 
us  and  we  must  stand  up  to  them."  This  feeling  was 
instinctive  v/ith  him..    It  never  left  him.    It  was  to  be- 


428  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

come  the  inspiration  of  his  career.  It  was  to  win  to 
his  constitutional  agitation  the  support  of  the  revolu- 
tionary societies!  If  he  never  entered  an  Irish  school 
in  boyhood,  he  was  to  carry  back  to  Ireland  from  the 
schools  across  the  channel  an  inveterate  hate  of  the 
oppressor.  One  thing,  then,  stands  out  in  connection 
with  his  period  of  education — his  hate  of  England. 
This,  we  shall  find  unwavering  to  the  end. 

The  period  previous  to  his  participation  in  politics 
was  as  much  of  a  puzzle  as  that  of  his  youth.  When 
he  returned  to  Avondale  he  gave  every  indication  of 
a  disposition  to  settle  down  to  the  prosy,  peaceful 
country  life  of  a  country  gentleman.  His  education 
had  been  a  dismal  failure.  Of  the  inspiring  story  of 
Ireland's  century-old  fight  for  the  righting  of  her 
wrongs  he  knew  as  little  as  of  the  tribal  life  of  the 
African  wilderness.  Then  followed  a  series  of  events 
that  turned  his  mind  into  political  channels. 

One  day  he  accompanied  his  favorite  sister,  Fanny, 
the  poet,  to  the  office  of  The  Irish  People,  the  revolu- 
tionary journal  of  the  Fenians,  and  then  learned,  to 
his  mystification,  that  the  gentle,  lovable,  womanly 
Fanny  was  an  ardent  Fenian.    This  interested  him. 

A  little  later,  when  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  had 
been  suspended,  and  the  Castle  was  proceeding  vig- 
orously against  the  Fenians,  a  crowd  of  insolent  police 
pushed  into  the  home  of  his  mother,  where  the  lord 
lieutenant  had  often  broken  bread,  and  searched  the 
premises  for  evidence  against  his  sister,  who  was 
forced  to  fly  by  night  from  the  protection  of  her  own 
roof.    This  outraged  him. 

And  then  came  the  legal  assassination  of  the  Man- 
chester martyrs,  and  Parnell  realized,  for  the  first  time, 


CHARLES    STEWART   PARNELL      429 

that  England  sat  in  judgment  on  Irish  affairs,  and  that 
his  own  people  were  impotent  slaves.  This  set  him 
to  thinking,  but  he  kept  his  own  councils,  then,  as 
afterward. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  vote  by  ballot  had 
been  extended,  and  he  eagerly  seized  upon  this  reform 
as  an  opportunity  for  fighting  England  in  her  own 
household,  through  the  organization  of  an  Irish  party, 
militant,  uncompromising,  England-hating,  which 
should  enter  parliament  and  compromise  the  very  in- 
stitutions of  the  enemy  by  reducing  them  to  impotency 
and  ridicule.    His  plans  were  forming. 

At  length,  a  vacancy  having  occurred  in  the  repre- 
sentation of  Dublin,  he  decided  to  make  the  plunge, 
and  offered  himself  for  the  constituency.  He  had 
nothing  to  offer  to  the  Irish  leaders  but  his  name — 
and  that  meant  much.  *T  will  trust  any  of  the  Par- 
nells,"  said  John  Martin,  one  of  the  veterans  of  '48, 
at  a  conference  of  the  party  managers,  and  the  aspir- 
ing politician  was  summoned.  A  distinguished  group 
of  veteran  leaders  awaited  him.  He  reached  the  hall  a 
stranger — a  tall,  delicate,  slender  youth — and  the  vet- 
erans gave  a  tremendous  ovation  to  the  scion  of  one 
of  the  most  patriotic  houses  in  Ireland.  Without  the 
slightest  expression  of  appreciation,  he  proceeded  to 
the  platform,  deadly  pale,  but  cold  and  with  downcast 
head.  He  began  to  speak  and  he  instantly  made  an 
impression.  He  impressed  T.  W.  Russell  with  his 
utter  political  ignorance,  and  he  impressed  O'Connor 
Power  with  the  feeling  that  he  possessed  nothing  but 
a  name.  It  was  then  too  late  to  turn  back,  however, 
and  Parnell  entered  the  contest,  which  resulted,  after 
a  short  sharp  battle,  in  his  defeat.    Then  it  was  when 


430  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

he  mystified  the  leaders  of  his  party,  who  had  given 
him  three  hundred  pounds  for  election  expenses.  The 
contest  had  cost  him  two  thousand  pounds,  and,  after 
his  defeat,  he  returned  the  three  hundred  pounds  to 
his  party,  untouched.  Even  more  mystified  than  the 
party  leaders  were  the  intimate  friends  and  relatives  of 
the  defeated  candidate,  who  beheld  him  returning  to 
Avondale  bubbling  over  with  enthusiasm,  confidence 
and  fight,  and  exclaiming,  "Well,  boys,  I  am  beaten, 
but  they  are  not  done  with  me  yet." 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1875  that  his  opportunity 
came  with  a  vacancy  in  the  representation  of  Meath, 
and  Parnell  instantly  was  put  up  by  the  Nationalists. 
It  is  interesting  to  know  that  his  candidacy  did  not 
meet  with  the  unqualified  approval  of  all  the  National- 
ists, many  of  whom  made  strenuous  efforts  to  persuade 
Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  to  stand  instead.  During 
the  contest  Parnell  spoke  without  much  effect,  but  ut- 
terly without  embarrassment,  and  was  elected.  There 
was  much  enthusiasm  at  Trim,  where  the  declaratiori 
of  the  poll  was  made,  but  while  the  crowds  were  cheer- 
ing and  the  bonfires  blazing,  the  new  member  of  par- 
liament was  discovered  walking  alone  with  a  cold  air 
of  detachment  from  the  parochial  house  to  his  hotel. 
The  crowd  made  a  rush,  picked  him  up,  carried  him 
several  times  around  the  bonfire  that  was  blazing  in 
his  honor  and  set  him  on  a  cask,  where  he  made  a 
brief  speech  of  appreciation.  And  now,  what  will  he 
do  with  it  ? 

In  his  recent  work.  The  History  of  the  Irish  Par- 
liamentary Party,  F.  H.  O'Donnell  lays  great  stress 
upon  Parnell's  utter  lack  of  preparation  for  a  career 
of  political  leadership,  and  especially  upon  the  density 


Sydney  P.  Hall 


Photograph  by  Geoghegan 

Charles  Stewart   Parnell 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      431 

of  his  ignorance  of  Irish  history  at  the  time  of  his 
election  to  parhament.  Of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
He  had  heard  of  Grattan's  parhament — that  was  all. 
He  had  listened  rather  listlessly  no  doubt  to  the  rec- 
ollections of  '98  from  the  lips  of  a  number  of  old 
men.  He  was  famihar  with  the  name  of  O'Connell, 
but  of  his  great  career  he  knew  practically  nothing. 
He  had  never  heard  of  the  Grey  Coercion  bill,  which 
had  meant  so  much  to  his  countrymen.  He  knew  about 
the  Manchester  martyrs  and  the  Fenian  Brotherhood 
— and  that  was  about  the  extent  of  his  historical 
knowledge.  As  an  orator  he  had  been  a  tragic  failure. 
As  for  the  leadership  of  men  he  had  demonstrated  no 
capacity  at  all — indeed,  had  manifested  rather  a  dis- 
position to  drive  men  from  him  rather  than  to  attract 
them  to  him.  And  yet  within  four  years  we  shall  find 
him  lashing  his  hated  England  into  furious  frenzy, 
and  awakening  a  long-slumbering  hope  in  the  breasts 
of  the  Irish  people.  And  through  it  all  we  shall  find 
him  the  same,  cold,  distant,  mysterious  personality — 
the  same  inexplicable  sphinx. 

II 

On  the  day  that  Parnell  took  his  seat  in  the  house 
of  commons,  Isaac  Butt,  the  leader  of  the  Irish  party, 
sauntered  over  to  Joseph  Biggar,  a  rough  and  tumble 
fighter  from  Ulster,  and  instructed  the  unpolished  but 
patriotic  Presbyterian  merchant  to  take  the  floor  and 
hold  it  for  a  while.  All  unwittingly.  Butt  prepared 
the  way  for  his  own  ultimate  undoing.  The  compara- 
tively uncouth  subordinate  took  the  floor  and  held  it 
with  a  speech  of  interminable  length,  reading  reams 


432  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

of  reports,  pages  of  statistics,  a  goodly  portion  of  the 
Blue  Book,  and  a  fair  proportion  of  the  Statutes,  un- 
til the  English  members  sought  relief  in  flight  to  the 
cloak  rooms  and  corridors.  One  desperate  member 
called  attention  to  the  absence  of  a  quorum.  Mr. 
Biggar  resumed  his  seat  until  the  house  again  filled, 
when  he  continued  his  speech — reading  from  the 
newspapers.  At  length,  after  three  hours  had  been 
consumed,  the  speaker  took  advantage  of  the  rule  to 
the  effect  that  the  member's  voice  must  reach  the 
speaker's  ear  to  call  the  Ulster  patriot's  attention  to  his 
apparent  inability  to  make  himself  heard  on  account  of 
the  condition  of  his  voice. 

"Ah,"  smiled  the  imperturbable  Mr.  Biggar,  "that  is 
because  I  am  too  far  away" — and  with  that  he  gath- 
ered together  his  hastily  collected  and  none  too  care- 
fully selected  library  and  his  glass  of  water  and  moved 
down  almost  under  the  speaker's  nose. 

"Since  you  have  not  heard  me,"  purred  the  inno- 
cent Mr.  Biggar,  "perhaps  I  should  begin  all  over 
again."  And  he  continued  an  hour  longer,  while  the 
English  members  groaned  and  cursed  inwardly. 

During  this  performance  Mr.  Biggar  had  one  amused 
and  sympathetic  auditor  in  the  person  of  Parnell,  who 
noted  with  infinite  delight  the  maddening  effect  upon 
the  hated  Englishmen  and  the  possibilities  of  obstruct- 
ing the  transaction  of  business.  In  the  brisk  crude 
merchant  from  Ulster  he  beheld  a  kindred  spirit — un- 
lettered, perhaps,  uninformed  possibly  as  to  Irish  his- 
tory, and  no  doubt  knowing  little  of  the  finesse  of 
parliamentar}^  procedure,  but  possessed  of  fighting 
proclivities  and  a  boundless  contempt  for  English 
opinion.     Parnell  made  a  mental  note  of  Biggar  and 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      433 

his  performance.  In  the  smoking  room  the  new  mem- 
ber for  Meath  never  tired  of  listening  to  Biggar's 
ruminations  of  the  gentlemanly  policy  of  the  Irish 
party.  "What's  the  good?"  he  would  exclaim,  brist- 
ling. "They  stop  our  bills,  why  don't  we  stop  theirs  ? 
No  legislation;  that's  the  policy,  sir;  that's  the  policy. 
Butt's  a  fool;  too  gentlemanly;  we're  all  too  gentle- 
manly." And  there  was  another  member  whose  views 
were  music  to  the  ears  of  Parnell.  This  was  Joseph 
Ronayne,  who  had  sat  for  Cork  since  '12,  and  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  England  would  never  con- 
sider Irish  business  until  the  Irish  prevented  the  con- 
sideration of  English  legislation.  Parnell  was  in- 
stinctively partial  to  the  pursuit  of  such  a  policy.  It 
spelled  action,  it  meant  fight. 

But  with  that  patience  for  which  he  became  famous 
he  bided  his  time,  kept  his  own  counsels  and  prepared. 
"An  obscure.  Inactive  member,"  says  Mr.  O'Donnell  in 
his  history.    Perhaps  so — but  not  an  indifferent  one. 

During  the  first  session  he  scarcely  opened  his  mouth. 
He  was  busy  studying  the  battlefield,  acquainting 
himself  with  the  strategic  points,  familiarizing  him- 
self with  the  weaknesses  In  the  defenses  of  the  enemy. 
Utterly  ignorant  of  parliamentary  procedure  and  cog- 
nizant of  the  necessity  of  mastering  the  generalship 
of  the  floor,  he  read  no  books  to  glean  the  necessary 
information.  There  was  nothing  of  the  subjective  in 
Parnell — he  was  all  objective.  He  learned  by  experi- 
ence. He  mastered  the  rules  by  breaking  them.  He 
converted  the  ministers  into  head-masters  and  learned 
from  them.  There  was  nothing  of  false  pride,  noth- 
ing of  affectation  In  his  nature,  and  he  frankly  plead 
guilty  to  his  ignorance  and  unblushlngly  asked  for  in- 


434  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

formation.  "How  do  you  get  material  for  question- 
ing the  ministers?"  he  asked  one  day  of  an  old  mem- 
ber. With  a  pitying  smile  he  was  informed  of  the 
process.  "Ah,"  said  Parnell,  "I  must  ask  a  question 
m.yself  some  day."  And  it  was  through  careful  ob- 
servation and  the  unembarrassed  propounding  of  in- 
numerable questions  that  he  became  a  perfect  master 
of  the  rules  of  debate,  a  parliamentary  general  un- 
equaled,  perhaps,  by  any  other  member  but  Gladstone. 
At  the  close  of  his  first  session  he  remained  obscure, 
but  he  had  learned  the  game.  He  had  done  no  shoot- 
ing but  he  had  possessed  himself  of  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion. He  emerged  from  his  first  session  thoroughly 
satisfied  of  the  futility  of  mere  parliamentary  warfare 
and  of  the  necessity  of  organizing  a  virile  fighting 
force  outside  the  house  of  commons.  Thus  do  we 
find  him  from  the  very  beginning  cleverly  laying  his 
plans  for  the  utilization  of  the  Fenians.  A  fighting 
party  w^ithin,  a  fighting  force  without — this  was  Par- 
nell's  plan  of  campaign. 

The  conditions  during  the  session  of  '76  were  au- 
spicious for  the  perfection  of  his  plan.  Gladstone  had 
retired  and  Disraeli  held  the  reins  of  power,  with 
Hicks-Beach  occupying  the  post  as  chief  secretary  for 
Ireland.  Divided  on  all  other  propositions,  the  Eng- 
lish parties  had  tacitly  agreed  to  move  as  a  single 
body  against  any  proposal  of  remedial  legislation  for 
the  subjugated  people  across  the  channel.  The  custo- 
mary batch  of  Irish  bills  were  presented  by  Butt  and, 
after  scant  consideration,  overwhelmingly  voted  dov/n. 
The  Irish  party  was  a  pitiful  and  impotent  phantom — 
hardly  a  shadow  in  the  sunshine  of  English  com- 
placency.    The  brief  and  contemptuous  speeches  of 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      435 

ministers  against  the  Irish  bills  only  served  to  ac- 
centuate the  humiliation  of  the  Irish  people.  It  was 
during  the  delivery  of  one  of  these  ministerial  re- 
marks, however,  that  Parnell  found  the  opportunity 
of  making  a  subtle  appeal  for  Fenian  support. 

While  discussing,  quite  languidly,  the  Home-Rule 
bill,  Hicks-Beach  expressed  his  surprise  that  any  one 
should  fancy  that  home  rule  would  result  in  the  re- 
lease of  the  Fenian  prisoners  or  the  "Manchester  mur- 
derers." Up  to  the  characterization  of  the  Man- 
chester martyrs,  Parnell  had  sat  in  an  apparently 
bored  silence,  but  at  the  words  "the  Manchester  mur- 
derers," he  startled  the  sedate  house  by  crying  out 
with  intense  vehemence — "No,  no."  The  house  was 
ineffably  shocked.  It  was  pleased  in  its  self-com- 
placency to  interpret  Parnell's  protest  as  a  justification 
for  murder.  Hicks-Beach  cast  a  w^ithering  look  of 
scorn  upon  the  obscure  member  from  Meath,  and  amid 
English  cheers  expressed  his  regret  that  "there  is 
an  honorable  member  who  will  apologize  for  murder." 
From  every  section  of  the  house  came  the  arrogant 
cry,  "withdraw,"  "withdraw."  And  then,  to  the 
amazement  of  the  representatives  of  English  con- 
stituencies, the  obscure  Irishman,  whom  the}^  had  as- 
sumed to  have  been  crushed  under  the  weight  of  their 
scorn,  rose  with  a  cold  and  composed  dignity,  and  in 
frigid  cutting  tones  replied : 


"The  right  honorable  gentleman  looked  at  me  so  di- 
rectly when  he  said  that  he  regrettea  that  any  member  of 
the  house  should  apologize  for  murder  that  I  wish  to  say, 
as  publicly  as  1  can,  that  I  do  not  believe  and  never  shall 
believe  that  any  murder  was  committed  at  Manchester," 


436  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

There  was  a  moment  of  awed  silence — a  few  spas- 
modic cheers  from  the  startled  Irish  members,  and 
the  incident  closed  as  far  as  the  house  was  concerned. 
But  beyond  the  walls  of  Westminster  and  throughout 
Ireland,  the  bold  defiance  of  Parnell  passed  hke  an 
electric  shock.  The  Fenians,  who  had  grown  tired  of 
the  gentlemanly  methods  of  Butt,  were  not  only  pleased 
at  the  defense  of  their  martyrs,  but  they  were  delighted 
at  the  unique  spectacle  of  an  Irish  member  of  parlia- 
ment accepting  an  English  challenge.  Their  eyes  were 
now  turned  to  Parnell,  and,  from  afar,  they  followed 
his  activities  w4th  an  intense  interest.  They  knew 
that  there  was  at  least  one  member  of  the  parliamentary 
party  who  would  fight,  one  at  least  who  frankly  hated 
England.  We  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Barry 
O'Brien  that  this  incident  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
close  alliance  which  was  to  follow  between  the  Fenians 
and  the  member  from  Meath. 

Meanwhile,  the  advanced  Nationalists  sent  a  deputa- 
tion to  President  Grant  with  an  address  of  congratula- 
tion on  the  centennial  of  American  independence,  and 
Parnell  was  placed  upon  the  delegation.  It  was  upon 
his  return  from  America  that  the  future  leader  de- 
livered his  first  ambitious  speech  at  a  Home-Rule  meet- 
ing in  Liverpool.  It  appears  that  but  for  the  substance 
of  this  address  it  would  have  been  a  tragic  failure.  The 
delivery  was  exceedingly  bad,  halting,  nervous,  irri- 
tating to  the  audience,  which  momentarily  feared  a 
complete  breakdown.  Standing  with  clenched  fists 
which  he  nervously  shook  while  awaiting  the  proper 
word,  he  presented  a  pitiful  picture.  His  anxious 
friends  upon  the  platform  at  times  whispered  a  word 
that  seemed  required,  but — and  this  is  worth  noting — 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      437 

not  once  did  Parnell  accept  the  word,  and  not  once 
did  he  fail  to  improve  upon  the  word  suggested.  It 
v/as  the  substance  of  the  speech,  however,  that  is  worth 
noticing  as  indicating  the  trend  of  his  thoughts  just 
previous  to  his  acceptance  of  the  grave  responsibihties 
of  leadership.    He  said,  in  part: 


"You  have  also  another  duty  to  perform,  which  is  to 
educate  public  opinion  in  England  upon  Irish  questions, 
which  I  have  looked  upon  as  a  difficult  and  an  almost 
impossible  task — so  difficult  that  I  have  often  been 
tempted  to  think  that  it  was  no  use  trying  to  educate 
English  public  opinion.  The  English  press  encourages 
prejudice  against  Ireland.  Englishmen  themselves  are 
in  many  respects  fair-minded  and  reasonable,  but  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  get  at  them — it  requires  intelligence 
almost  superhuman  to  remove  the  clouds  of  prejudice 
under  which  they  have  lived  during  their  lives.  I  know 
the  difficulties  of  the  Irish  people  in  England.  It  is  not 
easy  for  people,  living  as  they  are  in  friendship  with 
their  English  neighbors,  to  keep  themselves  separated 
from  English  political  organizations,  but  they  have  never 
been  afraid  to  lay  aside  private  and  local  considerations 
in  favor  of  supporting  their  fellow  countrymen  at  home. 
Our  position  in  Ireland  is  peculiar.  One  party  says  we 
go  too  far  in  the  Home-Rule  agitation  while  another  party 
says  we  do  not  go  far  enough.  You  have  been  told  we 
have  lowered  the  national  flag — that  the  Home-Rule  cause 
is  not  the  cause  of  Ireland  as  a  nation,  and  that  we  will 
degrade  our  country  into  the  position  of  a  province.  I 
deny  all  this.  There  is  no  reason  why  Ireland  under 
Home  Rule  would  not  be  Ireland  a  nation  in  every  sense 
and  for  every  purpose  that  is  right  she  should  be  a  na- 
tion. I  have  lately  seen  in  the  city  of  New  York  a  review 
of  the  militia,  in  which  five  or  six  thousand  armed  and 
trained  men  took  part,  at  least  half  of  them  being  veter- 
ans of  the  war.  They  marched  past  with  firm  step  and 
armed  with  improved  weapons.    They  were  at  the  com- 


438  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

mand  of  the  legislature  of  New  York  and  they  could  not 
budge  one  inch  from  the  city  without  the  orders  of  the 
governor.  If  in  Ireland  we  could  ever  have  under  Home 
Rule  such  a  militia,  they  would  be  in  position  to  protect 
the  interests  of  Ireland  as  a  nation,  while  they  would 
never  wish  to  trespass  upon  the  integrity  of  the  British 
empire,  or  to  do  harm  to  those  they  then  would  call  their 
English  brothers.  It  is  a  foolish  want  of  confidence  that 
prevents  Englishmen  and  the  English  government  from 
trusting  Ireland.  They  know  that  Ireland  is  determined 
to  be  an  armed  nation,  and  they  fear  to  see  her  so,  for 
they  remember  how  a  section  of  the  Irish  people  in  1782, 
with  arms  in  their  hands,  wrung  from  England  legisla- 
tive independence.  Without  a  full  measure  of  Home  Rule 
for  Ireland  no  Irishman  can  ever  rest  content." 


It  was  ill  his  Liverpool  speech  that  Parnell  began  to 
make  his  appeal  to  the  Irish  in  England  who  were  in 
later  years  to  become  such  potent  factors  in  placing 
the  English  parties  at  the  mercy  of  the  man  from 
Meath.  He  had  already  w^orked  out  his  plan  of  an 
Irish  party  standing  absolutely  aloof  from  all  English 
party  entanglements,  and  prepared  to  fight  any  min- 
istry of  any  political  complexion  that  refused  to  con- 
cede Irish  rights.  To  impart  the  needed  virility  to  such 
a  party,  he  knew  that  it  would  have  to  be  a  fighting 
machine  that  would  appeal  to  the  Fenians.  But  it 
was  not  alone  the  Fenians  that  he  wanted  to  enlist  in 
the  war  he  was  planning — it  was  every  element  of  the 
Irish  people.  It  was  in  the  harmonizing  of  the  various 
divergent  elements  that  Parnell  disclosed  his  marvelous 
political  sagacity,  his  subtle  diplomacy.  The  Fenians 
stood  for  force,  and  the  church  looked  with  distrust 
upon  the  fighting  brotherhood.  Parnell  knew  that  one 
without  the  other  would  be  fatal.     He  set  to  work  to 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      439 

compromise  the  differences,  to  amalgamate  the  ele- 
ments, to  consolidate  the  whole  of  Ireland  in  one  su- 
preme effort.  Hopeless  to  all  others,  it  was  possible 
to  the  patient  Parnell,  and  he  succeeded. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  session  of  '77  that 
Parnell  lead  off  with  his  fighting  policy  in  open  oppo- 
sition to  the  gentlemanly  tactics  of  the  leader  of  his 
party.  The  queen's  speech  had  scarcely  mentioned 
Ireland,  and  it  disclosed  the  determination  of  the  min- 
istry to  refuse  any  consideration  to  Irish  subjects.  The 
Irish  members  were  furious  at  the  slight,  but  the  gen- 
tle Butt  declined  to  enter  upon  a  policy  of  deliberate 
obstruction  to  English  legislation.  This  over-delicacy 
of  the  leader  precipitated  the  revolt.  The  man  from 
Meath,  who  had  defended  the  Manchester  martyrs, 
and  the  merchant  from  Ulster  determined  upon  a  policy 
of  persistent  and  systematic  obstruction,  and  in  the 
Mutiny  and  Prison  bills  they  found  satisfactory  objects 
of  attack.  Every  possible  expedient  conceivable  to  a 
skilled  parliamentarian  was  resorted  to  in  the  effort 
to  delay  proceedings.  With  an  icy  politeness  Parnell 
made  his  objections,  offered  his  motions,  moved  his 
amendments,  with  a  solemnity  and  businesslike  earnest- 
ness discussed  his  propositions  as  though  he  were  in- 
tensely interested  in  the  perfection  of  the  English 
measures.  There  was  nothing  offensive  or  unduly  ag- 
gressive in  his  manner.  There  was  not  the  slightest 
suggestion  of  an  ulterior  motive  in  his  tone. 

At  times,  when  the  English  members  had  been  ag- 
gravated to  the  breaking  point,  the  Irish  member  would 
graciously  withdraw  a  motion  or  accept  an  amend- 
ment, leaving  the  enemy  more  helpless  than  before. 
That  he  possessed  an  uncannily  dry  humor  was  mani- 


440  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

fested  once  during  the  fight  on  the  Prison  bill,  and 
especially  when  one  of  his  supporters  asked  that  the 
committee  on  the  bill  should  be  put  off  because  of  the 
early  departure  of  Irish  members  to  attend  the  grand 
juries  at  the  assizes  in  Ireland.  This  was  glaringly 
an  act  of  obstruction,  and  Parnell  arose  with  great  dig- 
nity to  enter  a  protest.  "I  think  the  business  of  the 
nation  should  be  attended  to  before  local  affairs,'*  he 
said  solemnly,  "and  the  attendance  at  the  grand  juries 
is  no  reason  for  postponing  the  committee."  The  Eng- 
lish members,  altogether  at  sea,  scarcely  knew  whether 
to  cheer  or  groan.  It  was  in  connection  with  the 
Mutiny  bill,  however,  that  Parnell's  new  tactics  aroused 
the  greatest  fury  in  the  house.  On  April  twelfth,  with 
the  aid  of  Biggar,  he  fought  clause  after  clause  of  the 
bill  until  almost  midnight,  when  the  member  from 
Ulster  rose  with  a  motion  to  report  progress  on  the 
ground  that  owing  to  the  lateness  of  the  hour  and  the 
pendency  of  numerous  important  amendments,  it  would 
be  quite  impossible  to  conclude  the  consideration  of 
the  bill  that  night.  Parnell  heartily  supported  his 
colleague — and  the  storm  broke.  It  was  on  this  occa- 
sion that  Butt  was  persuaded  publicly  to  repudiate  and 
disapprove  of  the  methods  of  his  obstreperous  sub- 
ordinate. His  speech  of  renunciation  was  greeted  with 
the  thunderous  applause  of  all  the  English  members, 
but  that  speech  and  that  applause  sounded  the  death 
knell  of  his  leadership.  Not  only  did  the  Fenians  feel 
that  it  showed  a  popularity  among  Englishmen  incom- 
patible with  proper  loyalty  to  Ireland,  but  they  looked 
upon  his  attack  upon  an  Irishman  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy  as  an  unpardonable  violation  of  the  rules  of 
war.    The  reply  of  Parnell  was  characteristic.   Coldly, 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      441 

with  icy  dignity,  apparently  without  the  slightest  feel- 
ing of  resentment,  he  brushed  aside  the  Butt  repudia- 
tion wnth  the  simple  sentence,  "The  honorable  and 
learned  gentleman  w^as  not  in  the  house  when  I  at- 
tempted to  explain  why  I  had  not  put  down  notice  of 
my  amendments."  Henceforth  the  breach  betw^een 
Butt  and  Parnell  widened  rapidly. 

Back  of  Parnell  stood  now  the  Fenians,  the  rad- 
icals, the  fighting  forces  and  ultimately  the  church. 
The  Home-Rule  Confederation  of  Great  Britain,  dom- 
inated quietly  by  the  Fenian  element,  leaned  strongly 
toward  Parnell,  and  it  was  under  its  auspices  that 
Parnell  was  enabled  to  address  numerous  Home-Rule 
meetings  in  England  and  Scotland.  In  all  these 
speeches  Parnell  met  the  issue  of  obstruction  boldly 
and  defiantly,  albeit  with  tact  and  diplomacy.  In  a 
speech  at  Glasgow  he  said : 

"I  am  satisfied  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  Irish 
people.  Are  they  for  peace  and  conciliation  or  for  hos- 
tility and  war?  (Cries  of  'War.')  Are  you  for  making 
things  convenient  for  England  and  for  advancing  Eng- 
lish interests?  If  so,  I  will  bow  to  your  decision,  but 
my  constituents  will  have  to  get  some  one  else  to  rep- 
resent them." 

A  little  later  he  addressed  a  great  meeting  at  Man- 
chester, on  which  occasion  he  said  : 

"For  my  part  I  must  tell  you  that  I  do  not  believe  in 
a  policy  of  conciliation  of  English  feeling  or  English 
prejudice.  I  believe  that  you  may  go  on  trying  to  con- 
ciliate English  prejudice  until  the  day  of  judgment  and 
that  you  will  not  get  the  breadth  of  my  nail  from  them. 
What  did  you  ever  get  in  the  past  by  trying  to  conciliate 
them?" 


442  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

A  voice — "Nothing  except  the  sword."  (Applause.) 
"Did  you  get  the  aboHtion  of  tithes  by  the  conciHation 
of  our  EngHsh  taskmasters?  No;  it  was  because  we 
adopted  different  measures.  (Applause.)  I  rather  think 
that  O'Connell  in  his  time  was  not  of  a  very  conciliatory 
disposition,  and  that  at  least  during  a  part  of  his  career 
he  was  about  the  best-abused  Irishman  living.  (Laugh- 
ter and  applause.)  Catholic  emancipation  was  gained 
because  an  English  king  and  his  minister  feared  revolu- 
tion. (Applause.)  Why  was  the  English  church  in  Ire- 
land disestablished  and  disendowed?  Why  was  some 
measure  of  protection  given  to  the  Irish  tenant  ?  It  was 
because  there  was  an  explosion  at  Clerkenwell  and  be- 
cause a  lock  was  shot  off  a  prison  van  at  Manchester. 
(Great  applause.)  We  will  never  gain  anything  from 
England  unless  we  tread  on  her  toes ;  we  will  never  gain 
a  sixpenny  worth  from  her  by  conciliation."    (Applause.) 

This  was  a  bold  and  open  bid  for  Fenian  support, 
and  his  reference  to  revolution  and  the  affair  at  Man- 
chester convinced  the  Fenians  that  while  Parnell  might 
be  a  parliamentarian  he  was  not  averse  to  fighting  in 
an  emergency.  His  speeches  strengthened  him  im- 
measurably in  the  country  and  this  popular  indorse- 
ment encouraged  him  to  increase  his  obstructive  ac- 
tivities in  the  house. 

Thus  the  battle  continued.  A  little  later,  during  the 
discussion  of  the  South  African  bill,  the  government 
being  anxious  to  put  the  bill  through  the  committee 
stage  that  night,  Parnell  returned  to  the  attack.  Late 
in  the  afternoon  one  of  ParnelFs  supporters  moved  to 
report  progress,  and  Parnell  supported  the  motion  on 
the  ground  that  additional  information  was  needed  be- 
fore the  house  could  intelligently  act.  This  aroused 
the  indignation  of  Sir  William  Harcourt,  who  di- 
rectly charged  the  Irish  leader  with  deliberate  obstruc- 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      443 

tion.  The  man  from  Meath  listened  coldly  to  the 
arraignment,  and  then,  without  paying  the  slightest 
heed,  he  turned  to  the  speaker  and  began,  "Sir,  I  will 
now  continue  my  observation."  This  w^as  greeted 
with  a  storm  of  yells.  Bedlam  broke  loose.  The  Eng- 
lish wxre  beside  themselves  w^ith  impotent  fury.  The 
chair  called  the  speaker  to  order.  The  Irish  leader 
condescendingly  complimented  the  chair  upon  the  fair- 
ness of  his  rulings,  and  continued.  The  turmoil  be- 
came so  loud  that  the  voice  of  Parnell  could  not  be 
heard — at  which  he  calmly  walked  from  his  place  to 
the  table  and  proceeded  with  his  remarks.  It  was  at 
this  juncture  that  he  solemnly  warned  the  English 
members  that  by  quarreling  among  themselves  they 
were  wasting  valuable  time.  At  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  the  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  complimented 
the  Parnellites  upon  their  plucky  fight  and  begged 
them  to  yield  in  view  of  the  physical  exhaustion  of  all 
the  members,  but  the  man  from  Meath  was  adamant 
to  the  compliment.  It  was  only  after  twenty-six  hours 
of  such  scenes  that  the  government  prevailed. 

The  effect  on  Parnell' s  fortunes  by  such  conduct  was 
magical.  The  Fenians,  who  had  lost  all  confidence  in 
a  parliamentary  fight,  could  not  but  admire  the  bat- 
tling ability  of  the  new  leader.  They  were  now  con- 
vinced that  their  hate  of  England  could  not  go  beyond 
that  of  Parnell.  They  could  not  but  glory  in  the 
manner  in  which  he  had  humiliated  all  the  English 
parties  by  reducing  English  government  to  a  condition 
bordering  on  impotency.  And  throughout  Ireland, 
into  every  nook  and  corner,  the  news  was  carried  that 
an  Irishman  had  stood  up  to  the  English  in  their  own 
bailiwick  and  fought  them  to  a  finish — holding  them 


444  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

up  to  the  ridicule  of  the  world.  The  spirit  of  Ireland 
was  aroused.  The  fighting  blood  was  stirred.  The 
unification  of  Irish  sentiment  followed,  and  Charles 
Stewart  Parnell  became,  for  the  first  time,  the  idol  of 
the  people.  We  shall  now  see  him  following  up  his  ad- 
vantage and  perfecting  his  fighting  machine. 

Ill 

The  militant  methods  to  which  Parnell  resorted  in 
his  parliamentary  fights  had  the  effect  of  breaking 
down  in  the  minds  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
Fenians  the  idea  that  nothing  could  possibly  be  accom- 
plished through  constitutional  agitation.  At  the  same 
time,  his  manifest  hatred  of  England,  together  with 
his  audacity  and  courage,  impelled  many  of  the  more 
radical  of  the  Fenians  to  believe  that  he  was  wasting 
his  time  and  talents  in  a  hopeless  cause,  and  an  earnest 
effort  was  made  to  persuade  him  to  enter  the  Fenian 
Brotherhood.  Importuned  at  various  times  and  with 
persistency  to  join  the  organization,  he  steadfastly 
refused  to  become  a  working  member.  He  had  no  de- 
sire to  be  in  on  the  inner  counsels.  He  preferred 
apparently  not  to  know  all  the  plans  that  were  incubat- 
ing in  the  Fenian  mind.  If  anything  of  a  revolu- 
tionary or  lawless  nature  was  being  contemplated  he 
wished  to  remain  in  ignorance  of  it — but  he  didn't 
propose  to  criticize  it.  It  was  his  idea  that  the  Fenians 
from  without  should  be  permitted  to  go  their  way  and 
all  he  asked  was  that  it  should  not  be  in  a  direction 
contrary  to  the  way  trod  by  the  Irish  party. 

*T  do  not  want  to  break  up  your  movement,"  he  said 
to  one  of  the  number  who  was  inviting  him  to  join. 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      445 

"On  the  contrary,  I  wish  it  to  go  on.  Collect  arms,  do 
everything  you  are  doing,  but  let  the  open  movement 
have  a  chance,  too.  We  can  both  help  each  other,  but 
I  am  sure  I  can  be  of  more  use  in  the  open  movement." 
It  was  this  peculiar  relationship  which  led  many  to  be- 
lieve that  at  heart  Parnell  was  a  revolutionist  and  was 
in  secret  sympathy  with  "political  crimes."  He  doubt- 
less looked  with  favor  upon  that  phase  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  which  made  its  appeal  to  the  masses 
of  the  people.  He  always  left  the  impression  with  his 
Fenian  compatriots  that  he  appreciated  their  friendly 
attitude  toward  him  and  that  he  entertained  a  secret 
sympathy  for  their  purposes — but  he  never  committed 
himself  as  to  the  revolutionary  plans  of  the  organiza- 
tion. If  he  w^as  strong  with  the  Fenians,  he  was  per- 
haps even  stronger  with  the  Clan-na-Gaels  of  America, 
who  had  been  deeply  impressed  by  his  new  idea  of  par- 
liamentary warfare.  When  they  sent  an  agent  to 
London  to  discuss  with  him  a  sort  of  alliance,  he  at- 
tended a  meeting  called  for  the  purpose,  listened  to  the 
discussion,  kept  his  own  counsel,  committed  himself 
to  nothing,  and  yet  in  some  subtle  mysterious  manner 
conveyed  the  unmistakable  impression  that  he  was  in 
reality  of  the  same  stern  stuff  as  themselves.  The 
fact  is,  according  to  Barry  O'Brien,  who  was  doubtless 
in  position  to  judge,  that  Parnell  understood  that  the 
parliamentary  movement  would  be  ridiculous  but  for 
the  cooperation  of  the  Fenians,  but  he  did  not  pro- 
pose to  be  placed  in  a  position  where  he  would  no 
longer  be  able  to  direct  the  movement.  It  was  his 
idea  to  let  the  Fenians  build  up  their  organization  to 
the  utmost  and  then  use  it  as  the  fighting  force  in  the 
background  behind  his  Irish  party.     It  has  been  said 


446  THE    IRISH  _ORATORS 

that  Tie  often  skirted  sedition,  often  advanced  to  the 
verge  of  lawlessness,  but  never  quite  crossed  the  line. 
Thus  did  he  win  the  confidence  of  the  revolutionaries. 
They  felt  that  if  the  parliamentary  movement  failed 
they  could  count  upon  Parnell;  and  pending  the  trial 
of  parliamentarianism  they  were  willing  that  Parnell 
should  count  upon  them. 

In  1878  another  element  was  introduced  into  the 
Irish  situation — and  not  of  Parnell's  initiative.  Late 
in  the  summer  of  that  year  Michael  Davitt  appeared  in 
America  upon  an  important  mission — to  advise  with 
the  leaders  of  the  Clan-na-Gael  on  the  new  aspect  of 
the  constitutional  movement.  Himself  a  Fenian,  he 
was  about  won  over  to  the  program  of  the  new  leader. 
Indeed,  before  leaving  for  America  he  had  a  confer- 
ence with  Parnell,  to  whom  he  divulged  his  purpose. 
The  leader  listened  in  sympathetic  silence.  He  offered 
no  suggestions.  He  sent  no  message.  He  kept  his 
counsel.  On  reaching  New  York,  Davitt  met  John 
Devoy,  likewise  a  revolutionist,  and  now  the  champion 
of  the  new  departure.  These  two  got  their  heads  to- 
gether on  a  new  plan  for  enlisting  the  farmers  in  the 
national  movement  through  the  introduction  of  an 
agrarian  reform  plank  Into  the  party  platform,  and 
within  a  month  they  had  succeeded  in  committing  the 
Clan  to  their  idea  through  the  passage  of  resolutions 
attributing  the  miserable  conditions  existing  in  Ire- 
land to  the  wretched  land  system  In  operation.  It 
was  their  intention  to  make  land  reform  the  para- 
mount plank  of  the  platform  of  the  Parnell  party,  and 
as  soon  as  they  had  won  over  the  majority  of  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Clan,  John  Devoy,  now  the  veteran  editor 
of  the  Gaelic-American,  cabled  Parnell,  proposing  an 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      447 

alliance  between  the  revolutionary  and  the  constitu- 
tional parties.  The  agitation  of  the  land  problem  look- 
ing to  an  ultimate  peasant  proprietary,  the  exclusion 
of  all  sectarian  issues,  the  unification  of  all  Irish  mem- 
bers of  parliament  on  all  votes,  whether  on  questions 
of  empire  or  Home-Rule — this  was  the  proposition 
submitted  to  Parnell  on  behalf  of  a  most  powerful  or- 
ganization. And  to  this  proposition,  from  such  a 
source,  Parnell  made  no  reply.  The  fact  that  this  lack 
of  common  courtesy  failed  to  dampen  the  hopes  of  the 
intrepid  Devoy,  or  to  lead  to  the  repudiation  of  the 
leader,  indicates  the  almost  uncanny  influence  that  the 
mysterious  personality  of  Parnell  exercised  over  the 
people.  He  had  refused  to  commit  himself — and  they 
were  satisfied  of  his  cooperation. 

Meanwhile,  Davitt  returned  to  Ireland  and  inaugu- 
rated his  now  famous  land  fight  by  the  organization 
of  "Tenant  Defense  Associations"  throughout  the 
country.  The  conditions  were  ripe  for  some  such 
movement.  The  Land  Act  of  1870  had  proved  its  fu- 
tility as  a  measure  of  relief,  and  the  downtrodden 
peasantry,  in  dire  distress,  was  looking  forward  to 
another  period  of  intense  suffering.  They  foresaw 
their  inability  to  meet  their  rents  followed  by  more 
wholesale  evictions — those  heart-breaking  incidents  so 
familiar  to  the  Irish  people.  The  landlords,  with  char- 
acteristic effrontery  and  brutality,  were  manifesting  no 
disposition  to  prevent  the  oncoming  distress.  Hope- 
less and  desperate,  their  backs  to  the  wall,  the  tenants 
were  prepared  for  any  proposition  looking  to  the 
amelioration  of  their  condition.  The  meetings  through- 
out the  island  were  largely  attended,  and  among  the 
(dominating  figures  at  these  public  gatherings  the  most 


448  THE   IRISH    OIL\TORS 

prominent  were  the  Fenians.  The  nationahst  move- 
ment was  beginning  to  reach  the  submerged,  the  most 
downtrodden  and  browbeaten  element  in  Ireland. 

And  Parnell — what  was  he  doing  at  this  juncture? 

He  was  studying  the  field,  pulsing  the  people,  getting 
his  bearings,  considering  the  general  effect  upon  his 
movement,  determining  for  himself  the  possibiHties  of 
the  new  association.  He  abstained  from  attending  the 
Davitt  micetings — but  he  got  his  reports.  He  looked 
down  upon  the  new  movement  from  the  great  height  of 
his  political  genius.  At  length  he  was  urged  to  attend 
a  land  meeting  at  Westport,  County  IMayo,  and  after 
some  hesitation  he  decided  to  take  the  plunge.  It  was 
in  his  speech  on  this  occasion  that  his  brief  injunction 
to  the  tenants,  "Keep  a  firm  grip  upon  your  home- 
steads," was  to  intensify  the  enthusiasm  of  the  militant 
forces  and  to  startle  the  conservatives  of  England.  He 
said: 

"A  fair  rent  is  a  rent  a  tenant  can  reasonably  pay 
according  to  the  times;  but  in  bad  times  a  tenant  can 
not  be  expected  to  pay  as  much  as  he  did  in  good  times, 
three  or  four  years  ago.  If  such  rents  are  insisted  upon 
a  repetition  of  the  scenes  of  1847  and  1848  will  be  wit- 
nessed. Now,  what  mxust  we  do  to  induce  the  land- 
lords to  see  the  position  ?  You  must  show  the  landlords 
that  you  intend  to  hold  a  firm  grip  on  your  homesteads 
and  lands.  You  must  not  allow  yourselves  to  be  dis- 
possessed as  you  were  dispossessed  in  1847.  You  must 
not  allow  your  small  holdings  to  be  turned  into  large  ones. 
I  am  not  supposing  that  the  landlords  will  remain  deaf 
to  the  voice  of  reason,  but  I  hope  they  may  not,  and  that 
on  those  properties  on  which  the  rents  are  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  times  that  a  reduction  may  be  made, 
and  that  immediately.  If  not  you  must  help  yourselves, 
and  the  public  opinion  of  the  world  v*'ill  stand  by  you 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARXELL      449 

and  support  you  in  your  struggle  to  defend  your  home- 
steads. I  should  be  deceiving  you  if  I  told  you  that  there 
was  any  use  in  relying  upon  the  exertions  of  the  Irish 
members  of  parliament  in  your  behalf.  I  think  that  if 
your  members  are  determined  and  resolute  that  they 
could  help  you,  but  I  am  afraid  they  won't.  I  hope  that 
I  may  be  wrong,  and  that  you  may  rely  upon  the  consti- 
tutional action  of  your  parliamentary  representatives  in 
this  the  sore  time  of  your  need  and  trial ;  but  above  all 
things  remember  that  God  helps  him  who  helps  himself, 
and  that  by  showing  such  a  public  spirit  as  you  have 
shown  here  to-day,  by  coming  in  your  thousands  in  the 
face  of  every  difficulty,  you  will  do  more  to  show  the 
landlords  the  necessity  of  dealing  justly  with  you  than 
if  you  had  one  hundred  and  fifty  Irish  members  in  the 
house  of  commons." 

The  effect  of  this  cold,  stern  proposition  of  resist- 
ance was  further  to  inflame  the  tenants,  enthuse  the 
Fenians  and  startle  the  government  with  its  doctrine 
of  revolt.  It  meant  something  rather  new  in  the  agra- 
rian fights  of  Ireland.  It  meant  war!  And  meanwhile 
the  government,  either  through  stupidity  or  stubborn- 
ness, made  no  effort  to  meet  the  trouble  on  the  way. 
Conditions  grew  rapidly  worse,  and  it  soon  became  evi- 
dent that  thousands  of  the  suffering  peasantry  would 
find  themselves  face  to  face  with  evictions.  And  then 
came  the  monster  meeting  at  Limerick  in  the  spring  of 
'79 — a  meeting  pregnant  with  the  spirit  of  revolution, 
pulsating  with  passion.  In  the  midst  of  the  seething, 
surging  multitude,  shouting  for  a  republic,  demanding 
an  appeal  to  force,  Parnell  sat  calm,  cold,  unmoved. 
When  called  upon  to  speak  he  delivered  his  message  in 
a  few  crisp,  energetic,  dictatorial  sentences  and  his  ad- 
vice was  this :  **'Stand  by  your  guns  and  there  is  no 
power  on  earth  which  can  prevail,  against  the  hun- 


450  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

dreds  of  thousands  of  tenant  farmers  in  this  country." 
This  was  not  demagoguery — it  was  treason  1  It  was  a 
bugle  call  to  the  people  to  rise  and  stand  erect.  And 
then  some  time  later  came  the  great  meeting  at  Tip- 
perary  where  Parnell  again  sought  to  stiffen  the  backs 
of  the  tenants  to  a  fighting  posture :  "You  must  rely 
upon  your  own  determination  which  has  enabled  you 
to  survive  the  famine  years  and  to  be  present  here  to- 
day, and  if  you  are  determined,  I  tell  you  that  you  have 
the  game  in  your  hands." 

The  country  was  now  ablaze,  and  tenant  defense 
associations  were  organized  and  active  in  every  nook 
and  corner  of  the  island.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that 
Davitt  determined  upon  the  domination  of  these  scat- 
tered organizations  through  a  central  committee  estab- 
lished in  the  city  of  Dublin.  It  was  now  apparent  to 
Parnell  that  a  movement  of  immense  magnitude  and 
potentiality  had  been  set  on  foot  and  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  foresee  the  effect  upon  the  future.  The 
central  commnttee  smacked  of  Jacobinism.  The  whole 
thing  pointed  to  revolution.  Possibly  it  was  to  be  a 
Frankenstein.  But  he  was  now  convinced  that  noth- 
ing could  stop  it  and  that  it  would  inevitably  become 
an  engine  for  immense  harm  or  good.  It  was  Fenian- 
ism  turned  in  a  practical  direction.  In  a  collision,  the 
parliamentary  party  would  go  down.  He  had  absorbed 
the  Fenian.  He  now  took  in  the  Land  League.  Thus 
did  Parnell  subordinate  everything  to  Home  Rule — 
thus  did  he  enlist  every  element  in  Ireland  in  the  fight. 

As  the  Land  League  meetings  multiplied  in  number 
and  intensified  in  determination  the  government, 
which  had  taken  no  action  to  prevent  the  threatened 
distress,  decided  to  proceed  against  the  new  movement, 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      451 

and  Davitt,  along  with  others,  was  arrested.  The  fol- 
lowing day  Parnell  took  the  platform  and  defied  the 
government  by  a  brazen  repetition  of  the  offense 
which  had  led  to  the  proceedings  against  Davitt.  Con- 
fronted now  by  an  aroused  nation  and  despairing  of 
securing  a  jury  that  would  convict,  the  prosecution  of 
the  leaguers  was  dropped — and  the  agitation  con- 
tinued. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  the  league 
concluded  to  send  Parnell  to  America  to  appeal  for 
the  funds  necessary  to  protect  the  tenantry  and  to  re- 
sist evictions.  It  was  not  a  mission  that  appealed  to 
the  taste  of  the  Irish  leader.  He  heartily  disliked 
speaking  and  shunned  crowds,  but  with  that  prescience 
which  characterized  his  leadership  he  instantly  saw  the 
immense  advantage  that  must  accrue  from  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  American  people  and  the  consequential  con- 
solidation of  the  Irish  race  throughout  the  world  in 
the  interest  of  Home  Rule.  Little  did  the  Land 
League  realize  perhaps  the  genius  in  its  conception. 
The  spectacular  tour  of  its  leader  was  to  lay  the 
foundation  for  that  hearty  cooperation  of  the  Irish 
exiles  which  was  to  contribute  so  much  to  the  fighting 
equipment  of  the  patriots  at  home.  In  his  History  of 
the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party,  F.  H.  O'Donnell  bit- 
terly denounces  Parnell  for  his  cultivation  of  "Ameri- 
can dollars,"  but  it  is  quite  impossible  to  comprehend 
his  scorn  in  view  of  the  comparative  helplessness  of 
the  Irish  party  during  the  last  thirty  years  but  for  the 
financial  assistance  of  the  exiles  over  seas.  During  a 
century  and  more  the  Irish-Americans  had  on  many 
an  occasion  sent  their  dollars  to  the  relief  of  the  fam- 
ine-stricken people  at  home,  but  it  was  left  to  Parnell 


452  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

to  make  them  understand  that  they  were  a  part  of  the 
Home-Rule  army — a  vital  part. 

The  tour  of  the  leader  was  a  succession  of  tre- 
mendous ovations — a  triumphal  journey.  Cities  con- 
tended for  the  honor  of  entertaining  him,  Senators, 
governors,  congressmen,  attended  him  everywhere, 
and  immense  multitudes,  too  great  to  find  accommoda- 
tion in  the  largest  halls  in  the  country,  poured  forth  to 
hear  his  message.  The  American  house  of  representa- 
tives paid  him  the  rare  tribute  of  inviting  him  to  speak 
to  the  American  people  from  its  rostrum,  and  then  ad- 
journed to  attend  a  reception  in  his  honor  at  the  Wil- 
lard  Hotel.  An  immense  concourse  of  people  met  him 
when  he  landed  in  New  York  and  Parnell  took  occa- 
sion to  explain  his  mission  w^ith  a  force  and  earnestness 
which  instantly  struck  a  sympathetic  chord  in  the 
American  breast. 

"We  have  to  aim  against  a  system  which  causes  dis- 
content and  suffering  in  our  country,"  he  said,  "and  we 
have  to  endeavor  to  break  down  that  system.  And  with 
God's  help  we  are  determined  to  break  it  down.  We  are 
also  to  see  that  the  victims  of  that  system  are  not  suf- 
fered to  perish.  In  the  meantime  we  are  to  take  care 
that  the  unity  and  strength  of  our  people  are  not  broken, 
and  that  now,  when  the  opportunity  has  really  come  for 
the  settlement  of  one  of  the  leading  questions  in  Ireland, 
the  opportunity  may  not  be  lost.  The  physical  suffer- 
ing and  misery  and  starvation  of  large  portions  of  our 
population  in  Ireland  has  not  been  exaggerated.  We 
have  been  calling  upon  the  government  for  eight  months 
to  relieve  that  distress,  but  it  has  only  been  within  the 
last  few  days  that  the  English  government  has  agreed  to 
admit  that  there  is  any  distress.  This  was  brought  to 
their  notice  by  a  letter  from  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 
wife  of  the  lord  lieutenant,  which  stated  there  was  going 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      453 

to  be  a  famine  and  dire  distress  during  the  coming  win- 
ter. .  .  .  We  feel  that  we  can  no  longer  shut  our 
eyes  to  the  terrible  peril  that  is  approaching,  and  we 
think  that  we  ought  to  put  the  case  before  our  own  coun- 
trymen, both  at  home  and  here  in  America,  and  endeavor 
to  enlist  sympathy  with  our  efforts.  We  believe  that  in 
this  country  the  sympathy  accorded  will  be  generous  and 
noble  despite  the  efforts  of  the  English  press  to  depre- 
ciate the  merits  of  the  American  nation." 

The  wonderful  outpouring  of  people,  the  marvelous 
manifestation  of  enthusiastic  S3anpathy  seemed  to  in- 
spire Parnell  in  his  efforts  and  the  series  of  speeches 
he  delivered,  touching  with  a  master  hand  upon  every 
phase  of  the  Irish  question  that  appealed  to  the  Irish- 
Americans,  left  an  indelible  impression  upon  the 
American  mind — an  impression  that  persists. 

At  Cleveland  he  did  not  fail  to  hold  forth  a  vague 
hope  for  the  Fenian  fighters  when  he  said : 

"It  has  given  me  great  pleasure  during  my  visit  to  the 
cities  of  this  country  to  see  the  armed  regiments  of 
Irishmen  who  have  frequently  turned  out  to  escort  us  ; 
and  when  I  saw  some  of  these  gallant  men  to-day,  who 
are  even  now  in  this  hall,  I  thought  that  each  one  of  them 
must  wish,  with  Sarsfield  of  old,  when  dying  upon  a 
foreign  battlefield — 'Oh,  that  I  could  carry  these  arms 
for  Ireland/  Well,  it  may  come  to  that  some  day  or 
other." 

It  was  at  St.  Louis  that  he  reached  the  heights  of 
his  eloquence : 

"No,  we  will  stand  by  our  country,  whether  we  are 
exterminated  by  famine  to-day,  or  discriminated  by  Eng- 
lish bayonets  to-morrow,  the  people  of  Ireland  are  de- 
termined to  uphold  the  God-given  right  of  Ireland — to 
take  her  place  among  the  nations  of  the  world.     Our 


454  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

tenantry  are  engaged  in  a  struggle  of  life  and  death 
w^th  the  Irish  landlords.  It  is  no  use  to  attempt  to  con- 
ceal the  issues  which  have  been  made  there.  The  land- 
lords say  that  there  is  not  room  for  both  tenants  and 
landlords,  and  that  the  people  must  go,  and  the  people 
have  said  that  the  landlords  must  go." 

And  then  the  orator  proceeded  to  foreshadow  his 
marvelous  fight  against  coercion  when  he  said : 

"Now  the  cable  announces  to  us  to-day  that  the  gov- 
ernment is  about  to  attempt  to  renew  the  famous  Irish 
coercion  acts  which  expired  this  year.  Let  me  explain 
to  you  what  these  coercion  acts  are.  Under  them  the 
lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland  is  entitled  at  any  time  to  pro- 
claim in  any  Irish  county,  forbidding  any  inhabitant  of 
that  county  to  go  outside  of  his  door  after  dark.  No 
man  is  permitted  to  carry  a  gun  or  to  handle  arms  in 
his  house ;  and  the  farmers  of  Ireland  are  not  even  per- 
mitted to  shoot  at  the  birds  when  they  eat  the  seed  corn 
on  their  freshly  sowed  land.  Under  these  acts  it  is  also 
possible  for  the  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland  to  have  any 
m.an  arrested  and  consigned  to  prison  without  charge, 
and  without  bringing  him  to  trial ;  to  keep  him  in  prison 
as  long  as  he  pleases ;  and  circumstances  have  been  known 
where  the  government  has  arrested  prisoners  under  these 
coercion  acts,  and  has  kept  them  in  solitary  confinemefnt 
for  two  years  and  not  allowed  them  to  see  a  single  rela- 
tive or*  to  communicate  with  a  friend  during  all  that  pe- 
riod, and  has  finally  forgotten  the  existence  of  the  help- 
less prisoners.  And  this  is  the  infamous  code  which 
England  is  seeking  to  reenact.  I  tell  you,  when  I  read 
this  despatch,  strongly  impressed  as  I  am  with  the  mag- 
nitude and  vast  importance  of  the  work  in  which  we  are 
engaged  in  this  country,  that  I  feel  strongly  tempted  to 
hurry  back  to  Westminster  in  order  to  show  this  Eng- 
lish government  whether  it  shall  dare,  in  this  year  1880, 
to  renew  this  odious  code  with  as  much  facility  as  it  has 
done  in  former  years." 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      455 

In  a  series  of  such  speeches  Parnell  aroused  a 
greater  interest  in  Irish  affairs  on  the  part  of  the 
American  people  than  had  ever  before  been  felt  in  his- 
tory, and  one  stormy  March  day  as  he  stood,  bare- 
headed on  the  bridge  of  the  outgoing  ship,  the  rain 
beating  down  upon  him,  as  he  gravely  saluted  the  gal- 
lant Sixty-ninth  Regiment  which  had  gathered  to  see 
him  off,  he  had  the  best  of  evidence  of  the  success  of 
his  mission  in  the  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  that 
he  was  carrying  back  to  Ireland  to  use  in  the  fight  for 
the  tenants. 

He  had  consolidated  the  Irish  at  home ;  he  had  or- 
ganized the  Irish  in  England  to  the  point  where  they 
had  become  a  vital  factor  in  the  political  life  of  the 
country;  and  now  he  w^as  going  home  with  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  had  enrolled  the  Irish- Americans  in 
the  battle  of  Home  Rule. 

Hardly  had  he  landed  in  Ireland  when  a  political 
crisis  was  precipitated  by  the  dissolution  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  he  was  immediately  plunged  into  a  gen- 
eral election.  To  the  English  end  of  the  contest  Par- 
nell paid  but  little  heed.  In  English  leaders  he  had 
but  little  confidence.  It  was  with  Irish  constituencies 
that  he  was  primarily  concerned,  and  he  threw  himself 
into  the  fight  in  Ireland  with  a  passionate  intensity 
that  set  the  island  ablaze.  He  was  a  veritable  demon 
in  battle.  Day  and  night,  v/ithout  rest,  without  sleep, 
he  devoted  himself  to  bringing  out  candidates,  super- 
intending the  details  of  the  campaign,  addressing  im- 
mense crowds  as  at  Cork  where  he  aroused  an  audience 
of  thirty  thousand,  speaking  in  villages  and  hamlets. 
The  man  who  disliked  speaking  developed  Napoleonic 
qualities  of  speech.    "Citizens  of  Cork,"  he  said,  the 


456  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

night  before  the  election  as  he  faced  an  immense 
throng  assembled  under  his  windows  at  the  hotel: 
"This  is  the  night  before  the  battle.  To  your  guns 
then."  And  they  responded.  When  the  smoke  lifted 
it  was  found  that  the  liberals  under  Gladstone  had 
swept  England,  and  that  in  Ireland  out  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  five  seats  Parnell  had  captured  sixty.  We 
shall  now  behold  him,  the  head  of  a  strongly  organized 
and  thoroughly  consolidated  army,  opening  fire  upon 
the  oppressors  across  the  channel  all  along  the  line. 

IV 

When  the  liberals  went  into  power  with  the  aid  of 
the  Irish  and  Gladstone  became  prime  minister,  Par- 
nell and  his  following  took  seats  with  the  opposition, 
thus  emphasizing  his  point  that  while  his  party  would, 
from  time  to  time,  effect  a  temporary  working  ar- 
rangement with  another  party,  it  would  necessarily 
remain  in  opposition  to  the  government  until  the  Irish 
wrongs  had  been  completely  righted.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  agrarian  disturbances  and  the  activity  of  the 
Land  League  the  queen's  speech  did  not  mention  the 
land  question  in  Ireland  as  among  the  topics  to  receive 
the  consideration  of  the  government.  It  now  appears 
that  Gladstone,  who  resembled  practically  all  English 
statesmen  in  this  regard,  was  really  ignorant  of  condi- 
tions in  Ireland  and  had  assumed  that  the  miserably 
inadequate  Land  Act  of  1870  had  settled  the  land 
problem  for  all  time  to  come. 

Upon  this  point  Parnell  quickly  disillusioned  him. 
Almost  immediately  he  brought  in  a  bill  to  stay  evic- 
tions and  to  award  compensation  in  the  event  of  any 


CHARLES    STEWART   PARNELL      457 

disturbances.  This  measure  went  beyond  the  possi- 
biHty  of  governmental  concession  at  that  time,  but 
Forster,  the  chief  secretary,  frankly  confessed  that  he 
was  not  prepared  to  reject  the  principle,  and  a  little 
later  he  brought  in  his  own  "Compensation  for  Dis- 
turbance" bill,  which  provided  that  the  evicted  tenant 
should  be  entitled  to  compensation  when  he  had 
proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  court  his  inability  to 
pay,  the  fact  that  such  inability  grew  out  of  bad  har- 
vests, and  that  he  had  expressed  his  willingness  to  con- 
tinue his  tenancy  on  just  and  reasonable  terms  which 
had  been  rejected  by  the  landlord.  This  measure, 
which  was  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  failed  to  obtain 
the  unanimous  support  of  the  liberal  party,  but  it 
easily  passed  second  reading  by  a  vote  of  295  to  217. 
After  the  bill  had  been  greatly  weakened  by  conces- 
sions to  the  landlords,  it  passed  on  third  reading  and 
went  to  the  house  of  lords  where  it  was  promptly  re- 
jected with  every  manifestation  of  contempt. 

The  defeat  of  this  measure  was  the  signal  for  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  It  was  now  evident  that  noth- 
ing could  be  expected  from  the  government  to  relieve 
the  situation  in  Ireland.  The  agitation  in  that  un- 
happy island  increased  a  hundredfold.  Every  eviction 
was  attended  by  a  riot.  The  tenant  who  had  dared  to 
take  a  place  from  which  another  had  been  evicted  was 
assaulted  and  his  property  destroyed.  It  was  under 
these  conditions  that  Parnell  decided  to  declare  war 
upon  the  ministry  he  had  helped  to  place  in  power. 
He  entertained  not  a  scintilla  of  faith  in  its  sincerity. 
He  realized  that  nothing  further  could  be  accomplished 
by  discussion  or  agitation  in  the  house  of  commons, 
and  he  hurried  back  to  Ireland  to  urge  upon  the  ten- 


458  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

ants  the  revolutionary  necessity  of  protecting  them- 
selves— and  that  could  only  mean  by  force  of  one  kind 
or  another.  In  the  despair  of  the  tenants  he  saw  the 
opportunity  to  make  the  Land  League  as  strong  a 
power  as  the  Catholic  Association  of  O'Connell — ^and 
he  made  it  stronger. 

Thus  it  was  that  one  day,  in  late  September,  Pamell 
stood  up  before  an  immense  throng  at  Ennis,  and,  in 
a  speech,  cold,  concise  and  deliberative,  threw  down 
the  gauntlet  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  a  profound 
impression  upon  the  country. 

"Depend  upon  it  that  the  measure  of  the  Land  bill  next 
session  will  be  the  measure  of  your  activity  and  energy 
this  winter,"  he  said.  "It  will  be  the  measure  of  your 
determination  not  to  pay  unjust  rents;  it  will  be  the 
measure  of  your  determination  to  keep  a  firm  grip  on 
your  hom.esteads.  It  will  be  the  measure  of  your  de- 
termination not  to  bid  for  farms  from  which  others  have 
been  evicted,  and  to  use  the  strong  force  of  public  opin- 
ion to  deter  any  unjust  man  amongst  yourselves — and 
there  are  many  such — from  bidding  for  such  farms. 
Now,  what  are  you  to  do  to  a  tenant  who  bids  for  a 
farm  from  which  his  neighbor  has  been  evicted?" 
(Much  excitement  and  cries  of  "Shoot  him.") 
"Now,  I  think  I  heard  some  one  say,  'Shoot  him,* " 
Parnell  continued  softly,  entirely  unmoved.  "I  wish  to 
point  out  to  you  a  much  better  way — a  more  Christian 
and  a  more  charitable  way — which  will  give  the  lost  sin- 
ner an  opportunity  of  repenting.  When  a  man  takes  a 
farm  from  which  another  has  been  evicted,  you  must 
show  him  on  the  roadside  when  you  meet  him,  you  must 
show  him  in  the  streets  of  the  town,  you  must  show 
him  at  the  shop  counter,  you  must  show  him  at  the  fair 
and  in  the  market  place,  and  even  in  the  house  of  worship, 
by  leaving  him  severely  alone,  by  putting  him  into  a 
moral  Coventry,  by  isolating  him  from  his  kind  as  if 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      459 

he  were  a  leper  of  old — ^you  must  show  him  your  de- 
testation of  the  crime  he  has  committed,  and  you  may  de- 
pend upon  it  that  there  will  be  no  man  so  full  of  avarice, 
so  lost  to  shame,  as  to  dare  the  public  opinion  of  all 
right  thinking  men  and  to  transgress  your  unwritten  code 
of  laws." 

Not  so  eloquent  perhaps  as  other  famous  speeches, 
but  few  have  been  so  historic  or  effective,  for  this 
speech  at  Ennis  brought  the  boycott  into  action  for  the 
first  time.  The  trem.endous  import  of  the  new  propo- 
sition was  not  lost  upon  the  governmental  authorities. 
In  England  it  was  looked  upon  as  scarcely  less  than 
anarchy.  In  Ireland  it  aroused  the  most  intense  en- 
thusiasm. It  delighted  the  Fenians  and  it  won  the 
farmers.  And  after  he  had  won  the  farmers  through 
the  propaganda  of  the  Land  League  he  hastened  to 
impress  upon  their  minds  the  essential  connection  be- 
tween land  reform  and  the  restoration  of  the  legisla- 
tive independence  of  the  country.  Thus  did  he  give 
expression  to  his  marvelous  political  sagacity.  The 
Land  League  w^as  not  his  creature.  It  was  forced  upon 
him.  And  just  at  the  juncture  where  it  threatened  to 
supplant  the  Home-Rule  movement  he  stepped  in  and 
took  the  leadership  to  the  end  that  he  might  lead  the 
league,  and  with  it  all  the  farmers  who  had  hitherto 
held  back  from  the  political  movement,  into  the  Home- 
Rule  camp. 

This  done,  the  league  grew  with  phenomenal  rapid- 
ity both  in  numbers  and  in  power.  It  had  touched  the 
sympathy  of  the  American  people,  and  largely  through 
the  enthusiastic  cooperation  of  Patrick  Ford,  the  bril- 
liant and  militant  editor  of  The  Irish  World  of  New 
York,   thousands   of   dollars — American   dollars,    so 


460  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

much  despised  by  Mr.  O'Donnell — poured  into  the 
coffers  of  the  organization.  The  league  soon  over- 
shadowed the  power  of  the  Castle.  The  masses  of  the 
people  accepted  its  dictum  as  law.  Its  orders  were 
obeyed.  The  suggestions  of  its  leaders  were  adopted. 
It  took  on  the  dignity  of  a  provisional  government. 
And  meanwhile  the  misery  of  the  people  increased. 
Nowhere  in  all  of  Europe — not  even  in  the  most  pov- 
erty-stricken parts  of  Europe — was  there  such  suffer- 
ing. Thousands  unable  to  pay  their  rent  were  brutally 
throvv^n  out  upon  the  highway  to  starve.  Women  who 
were  sick  were  carried  out  into  the  road  upon  their 
cots  and  left  exposed  to  the  elements.  Outrages  in- 
numerable were  committed  in  retaliation.  Bands  of 
desperate  tenants  scoured  the  country  carrying  the 
torch  of  the  incendiary  from  house  to  house. 

The  battle  was  on  in  earnest — it  was  the  govern- 
ment versus  the  Land  League,  and  Gladstone,  in  a  fury 
at  his  own  impotency,  determined  to  suppress  the  pow- 
erful organization  which  had  reduced  his  Irish  gov- 
ernment to  a  shadow.  Lord  Cowper,  the  lord  lieuten- 
ant, was  in  the  Castle — but  Parnell  was  king!  After 
his  favorite  fashion  the  Irish  leader  was  skilfully 
skirting  sedition — but  he  kept  wnthin  the  law.  The 
government  feared  him,  hated  him,  thought  him  capa- 
ble of  going  any  length,  but  it  could  fix  no  specific 
crime  upon  him.  He  w  ent  his  way.  He  did  not  march 
with  the  incendiaries — but  he  set  Ireland  on  fire. 

And  the  government  ? 

It  was  a  house  divided  against  itself.  The  officials 
in  Ireland  urged  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus — another  favorite  Irish  remedy — but  the  min- 
istry drew  back  and  urged  the  exhausting  of  all  the 


Michael  Davitt 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      461 

ordinary  remedies  and  the  prosecution  of  the  leaders 
of  the  league.  The  problem  was  no  longer  the  ame- 
lioration of  the  conditions  of  the  starving  tenantry,  but 
the  discovery  of  Incendiarism  in  the  speeches  of  Par- 
nell  and  Davitt  and  their  followers.  The  government 
was  too  Intent  on  watching  these  gentlemen  to  pay  any 
heed  to  the  starving  children,  evicted  to  perish  like 
beasts  upon  the  highway.  The  letters  that  were  ex- 
changed at  this  time  between  Lord  Cowper  and  the 
ministry  throw  a  pitiful  light  upon  the  miserable  pol- 
icy of  the  period — complaints  of  the  lawful  nature  of 
the  speeches,  of  the  sympathy  of  the  people  with  the 
lawbreakers,  of  the  bitterness  manifested  against  the 
landlords,  of  the  Increasing  power  of  the  league. 

And  then  the  government  struck ! 

Early  in  November  Parnell  and  his  lieutenants  were 
arrested  on  the  charge  of  conspiracy  to  prevent  the 
payment  of  rent,  to  resist  evictions  and  to  prevent  the 
taking  of  farms  from  which  a  tenant  had  been  evicted. 
When  served  with  the  papers  Parnell  merely  smiled 
— his  cold  slow  smile.  It  was  as  silly  as  the  arrest- 
ing of  a  soldier  in  the  midst  of  the  sacking  of  a  con- 
quered city.  A  few  days  after  the  arrest  the  Irish 
leader,  speaking  to  a  multitude  In  Dublin,  took  occa- 
sion to  express  his  open  contempt  for  the  proceedings 
of  the  court.  He  was  hailed  as  a  hero  everywhere. 
The  city  of  Limerick  presented  him  with  the  freedom 
of  the  city.  And  then  came  the  trial — a  long-drawn 
legal  battle  full  of  sound  and  fury  signifying  nothing 
— and  then  the  failure  of  the  prosecution.  Walking 
like  a  conqueror  from  the  court  room,  he  was  given  an 
ovation  by  the  thousands  In  the  streets,  who  shouted 
lustily,  "Long  live  the  chief."     That  night  bonfires 


462  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

were  blazing  on  all  the  hilltops.  The  ordinary  proc- 
esses of  the  law  had  failed. 

What  next? 

The  inevitable  thing  under  such  governmental  con- 
ditions— the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
— coercion,  a  governmental  reign  of  terror,  a  rever- 
sion to  first  principles.  The  fight  of  Parnell  now 
shifted  back  to  Westminster,  where  he  made  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  and  picturesque  fights  against  the 
Forster  Coercion  bill  that  has  ever  been  witnessed  in 
the  English  parliament.  With  marvelous  dexterity, 
untiring,  determined,  he  interposed  between  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  passage  of  the  bill  every  parliamen- 
tary device  known  to  m.an.  Every  possible  scheme  of 
obstruction  was  brought  into  play.  The  Irish  party  slept 
upon  their  arms — rather,  they  slept  not  at  all.  At  length, 
worn  to  a  frazzle,  desperate  in  its  impotency,  the  gov- 
ernment, finding  itself  unable  to  defeat  the  little  strag- 
gling army  of  Parnell  through  recognized  parliamen- 
tary methods,  put  an  end  to  the  struggle  after  eleven 
days  by  mobbing  the  parliament.  Force  in  Ireland — 
force  in  parliament — why  not  ?  The  Coercion  bill  was 
passed  and  the  lord  lieutenant  was  authorized  to  ar- 
rest any  persons  he  reasonably  suspected  and,  without 
trial,  to  throw  them  into  prison  and  hold  them  there 
for  any  period  up  to  September  thirtieth,  1882.  This 
was  in  the  England  of  the  latter  days  of  the  nineteenth 
century ! 

The  merry  work  immediately  began  in  Ireland  and 
hundreds  were  swept  into  prison — but  the  fight  went 
on,  the  agitators  thundered  from  the  platforms,  the 
island  seethed  with  infuriated  tenants,  and  nothing 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      463 

was  accomplished  except  to  demonstrate  the  futility 
of  the  attempt  to  subdue  the  country.  And  then  Glad- 
stone saw  the  light. 

The  prime  minister  now  understood  that  the  Land 
Act  of  1870  did  not  amount  to  the  paper  it  was  writ- 
ten on  as  far  as  satisfying  the  people  and  meeting  the 
situation  went.  He  realized,  as  the  prisons  filled  with- 
out the  abatement  of  the  agitation,  that  coercion  with- 
out remedial  legislation  would  not  avail.  He  awoke 
to  a  realization  of  his  duty.  The  Land  League,  as  he 
admitted  twenty  years  later,  tore  the  scales  from  his 
eyes  and  he  beheld  Ireland  for  the  first  time.  In  April, 
1881,  he  amazed  the  country  by  bringing  in  a  measure 
of  land  reform  so  sweeping  in  its  nature  as  to  amount 
to  revolution.  It  practically  swept  away  the  power 
of  the  landlords.  In  a  large  degree  it  met  the  Irish 
demands. 

And  Parnell — how  did  he  meet  the  concession  ? 

The  Gladstone  conversion  brought  Parnell  face  to 
face  with  one  of  the  most  critical  moments  of  his 
career,  where  a  false  step  would  have  meant  ultimate 
ruination,  and  the  natural  step  would  have  been  the 
false  one.  To  have  eagerly  accepted  the  bill  would 
have  weakened  him  in  his  greater  fight  for  Home  Rule 
and  would  have  hopelessly  compromised  him  with  the 
Fenian  element  of  his  following  and  with  his  Amer- 
ican supporters.  To  have  rejected  it  utterly  would 
have  been  worse  than  criminal.  Some  of  the  members 
of  the  Irish  party  spoke  in  favor  of  the  measure.  The 
enemies  of  Parnell  began  to  whisper  it  about  that  he, 
too,  would  gladly  accept  it.  No  one,  not  even  his  own 
party,  knew  precisely  what  Parnell  would  do,  but  his 


464  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

followers  assumed,  of  course,  that  he  would  give  it 
a  tacit  support.  As  the  time  for  the  second  reading 
approached  Parnell  called  a  conference  of  the  Irish 
party  to  determine  upon  its  attitude  toward  the  bill. 
The  members  were  all  present  and  in  their  seats  when 
the  leader  reached  the  conference  room,  and  in  his 
characteristically  cold  and  mystic  manner  walked  to 
the  front  of  the  room  and  took  the  chair. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  began,  "I  don't  know  what  your  view 
of  this  question  is.  I  am  against  voting  on  the  second 
reading  of  the  bill.  We  have  not  considered  it  carefully. 
We  must  not  make  ourselves  responsible  for  it.  Of 
course,  I  do  not  want  to  force  my  views  upon  anybody, 
but  I  feel  so  strongly  upon  the  subject  that  if  a  majority 
of  the  party  differ  from  me  I  shall  resign  at  once." 

Thus  Parnell  had  his  way,  the  party  harmony  was 
preserved,  the  Fenians  were  satisfied  and  the  Home 
Rulers  scored  a  triumph  without  compromising  the 
greater  cause.  When  the  bill  passed  on  second  reading 
Parnell  and  thirty-five  of  his  followers  walked  out — 
refusing  to  vote.  Whenever  the  bill  or  any  part  of 
it  was  in  danger  Parnell  threw  his  thirty-five  into  the 
balance  and  saved  the  day.  When  the  final  vote  was 
taken  he  walked  out — but  the  bill  passed.  This  meas- 
ure took  from  the  landlords  the  power  to  increase  rents 
arbitrarily,  established  tribunals  for  the  fixing  of  rents 
and  multiplied  the  facilities  for  creating  a  peasant  pro- 
prietary. It  was  the  first  great  Irish  service  ever  ren- 
dered by  Gladstone. 

It  soon  developed,  however,  that  Parnell  had  seen 
clearer  and  further  than  his  followers,  for  the  accept- 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      465 

ance  of  the  Land  act,  even  in  the  manner  and  to  the 
degree  in  v/hich  it  was  accepted  by  the  Irish  party, 
created  the  utmost  distrust  in  America  and  aroused  the 
indignation  of  Patrick  Ford,  whose  services  to  the  par- 
Hamentary  party  were  of  inestimable  value.  This  de- 
fection determined  the  course  of  Parnell — ^he  proposed 
that  his  party  should  give  public  evidence  of  its  suspi- 
cions of  the  law,  and  this  was  done  by  advising  the 
tenants  not  to  rush  precipitately  into  the  law  courts 
with  their  rent  difficulties.  In  September,  1881,  the 
Land  League,  in  convention  assembled  in  Dublin,  took 
the  new  Land  act  under  consideration,  and  Parnell 
proposed  that  instead  of  permitting  the  tenants  to  rush 
indiscriminately  into  the  courts  the  league  should  se- 
lect certain  cases  for  test  purposes.  This,  according 
to  O'Brien,  was  done  to  conciliate  Ford.  By  selecting 
cases  other  than  those  notoriously  cruel  the  idea  was 
held  out  to  the  editor  of  The  Irish  World  that  the  de- 
termination of  these  test  cases  would  sufficiently  dem- 
onstrate the  shallowness  of  the  measure. 

This  plan  of  campaign,  which  was  adopted  by  the 
league,  led  to  the  most  bitter  and  extravagant  attacks 
upon  Parnell  by  the  English  papers  of  every  political 
persuasion — which  was  precisely  what  Parnell  wanted. 
The  semi-acceptance  of  the  law  by  the  Irish  party  had 
rather  tended  to  weaken  Parnell  with  the  radicals ;  the 
English  denunciations  of  the  leader  drew  them  back. 
It  was  left  to  Gladstone  to  add  anything  that  the  Eng- 
lish press  had  omitted,  and  in  a  speech  at  Leeds  the 
prime  minister  denounced  the  Irish  leader  with  a  bit- 
terness seldom  expressed  by  that  great  statesman. 
This,  too,  was  playing  into  the  hands  of  Parnell,  and 


466  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

he  hastened  to  follow  up  his  advantage  with  a  counter- 
attack or  reply  delivered  at  Wexford  on  October  ninth, 
1881.    In  this  speech  he  said : 

"You  have  gained  something  for  your  exertions  during 
the  last  twelve  months ;  but  I  am  here  to-day  to  tell  you 
that  you  have  gained  but  a  fraction  of  that  to  which  you 
are  entitled.  And  the  Irishman  who  thinks  that  he  can 
now  throw  away  his  arms,  just  as  Grattan  disbanded  the 
Irish  Volunteers  in  1782,  will  find  to  his  sorrow  and  de- 
struction v*"hen  too  late  that  he  has  placed  himself  in 
the  power  of  the  perfidious  and  cruel  and  relentless  Eng- 
lish enemy.  .  .  .  It  is  a  good  sign  that  the  masquer- 
ading knight  (Gladstone),  this  pretending  champion  of 
the  rights  of  every  other  nation,  should  be  obliged  to 
throw  oft*  the  mask  to-day  and  stand  revealed  as  the  man 
who,  by  his  own  utterances,  is  prepared  to  carry  fire  and 
sword  into  your  homesteads  unless  you  humbly  abase 
yourselves  before  him  and  before  the  landlords  of  the 
country.  But  I  have  forgotten.  I  said  that  he  maligned 
everybody.  Oh,  no.  He  has  a  good  word  for  one  or 
two  people.  He  says  that  the  late  Isaac  Butt  was  a  most 
estimable  man  and  a  true  patriot.  When  we  in  Ireland 
were  following  Isaac  Butt  into  the  lobbies  endeavoring 
to  obtain  the  very  act  which  William  Ewart  Gladstone, 
having  stolen  the  idea  from  Isaac  Butt,  passed  last  ses- 
sion, William  Ewart  Gladstone  and  his  ex-government 
officials  were  following  Sir  Starafford  Northcote  and 
Benjamin  Disraeli  into  the  other  lobby.  No  man  is  great 
in  Ireland  until  he  is  dead  and  unable  to  do  anything 
more  for  his  country.  In  the  opinion  of  an  English 
statesman  no  man  is  good  in  Ireland  until  he  is  dead  and 
buried  and  unable  to  strike  a  blow  for  Ireland.  Per- 
haps the  day  may  come  when  I  may  get  a  good  word 
from  an  English  statesman  as  being  a  moderate  man, 
after  I  am  dead  and  buried.  V/hen  people  talk  of  pub- 
lic plunder  they  should  ask  them.selves  who  were  the  first 
plunderers  in  Ireland.  The  land  of  Ireland  has  been  con- 
fiscated three  times  over  by  the  men  whose  descendants 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      467 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  supporting  in  the  enjoyment  of  the 
fruits  of  their  plunder  by  his  bayonets  and  his  buckshot. 
And  when  we  are  spoken  to  about  plunder  we  are  en- 
titled to  ask  who  were  the  first  and  biggest  plunderers. 
This  doctrine  of  public  plunder  is  only  a  question  of 
degree. 

"In  one  last  despairing  wail  Mr.  Gladstone  says,  'And 
the  government  is  expected  to  preserve  peace  with  no 
moral  force  behind  it.'  The  government  has  no  moral 
force  behind  them  in  Ireland;  the  whole  Irish  people 
are  against  them.  They  have  to  depend  for  their  sup- 
port upon  a  self-interested  and  a  very  small  minority  of 
the  people  of  the  country,  and  therefore  they  have  no 
moral  force  behind  them,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  those 
few  short  words,  admits  that  English  government  has 
failed  in  Ireland. 

"He  admits  the  contention  that  Grattan  and  the  Vol- 
unteers of  1782  fought  for ;  he  admits  the  contention  that 
the  men  of  '98  died  for;  he  admits  the  contention  that 
O'Connell  argued  for ;  he  admits  the  contention  that  the 
men  of  '48  staked  their  all  for ;  he  admits  the  contention 
that  the  men  of  ^67,  after  a  long  period  of  depression 
and  apparent  death  of  national  life  in  Ireland,  cheer- 
fully faced  the  dungeons  and  the  horrors  of  penal  servi- 
tude for;  and  he  admits  the  contention  that  to-day  you, 
in  your  overpowering  multitudes,  have  established  and, 
please  God,  will  bring  to  a  successful  issue — namely,  that 
England's  mission  in  Ireland  has  been  a  failure,  and  that 
Irishmen  have  established  their  right  to  govern  Ireland 
by  laws  made  by  themselves  on  Irish  soil.  I  say  it  is  not 
within  ]\Ir.  Gladstone's  power  to  trample  on  the  aspira- 
tions and  rights  of  the  Irish  nation  with  no  moral  force 
behind  him.  .  .  .  These  are  very  brave  words  that 
he  uses,  but  it  strikes  me  that  they  have  a  ring  about 
them  like  the  whistle  of  a  schoolboy  on  his  way  through 
a  churchyard  at  night — ^to  keep  up  his  courage.  He 
would  have  you  believe  that  he  is  not  afraid  of  you 
because  he  has  disarmed  you,  because  he  has  attempted 
to  disorganize  you,  because  he  knows  that  the  Irish  na- 


46S  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

tion  IS  to-day  disarmed  as  far  as  physical  weapons  are 
concerned.  But  he  does  not  hold  this  kind  of  language 
with  the  Boers.  At  the  beginning  of  this  session  he  said 
something  of  this  kind  about  the  Boers.  He  said  that 
he  was  going  to  put  them  down,  and  as  soon  as  he  dis- 
covered that  they  were  able  to  shoot  straighter  than  his 
own  soldiers  he  allowed  these  few  men  to  put  him  and 
his  government  down.  I  trust  as  a  result  of  this  great 
movement  we  shall  see  that,  just  as  Gladstone  by  the  act 
of  1881  has  eaten  all  his  own  words,  has  departed  from 
all  his  formerly  declared  principles,  now  we  shall  see 
that  these  brave  words  of  the  English  prime  minister 
will  be  scattered  like  chaff  before  the  united  and  ad- 
vancing determination  of  the  Irish  people  to  regain  for 
themselves  their  lost  land  and  their  legislative  inde- 
pendence." 

It  was  inevitable  that  such  a  speech,  following  close 
upon  that  of  the  prime  minister  and  making  the  issue 
plain  between  the  government  and  Parnell  as  to  which 
of  the  two  should  dominate  Ireland,  should  have  a  tre- 
mendous effect.  It  was  a  defiance  and  a  challenge  to 
battle.  It  had  to  be  accepted  or  the  government  was 
lost.  It  made  it  almost  a  matter  of  political  necessity 
for  the  government  to  proceed  against  the  Irish  leader 
■ — ^and  this  Parnell  knew,  upon  this  he  had  thought. 
It  was  in  the  days  when  threatening  letters  were  be- 
ing sent  to  landlords  in  Ireland  signed  "Captain  Moon- 
light." On  the  evening  of  the  delivery  of  his  Wex- 
ford speech  Parnell  and  some  of  his  followers  dined 
together  and  the  followers,  fearing  and  more  than  half 
expecting  that  Parnell's  arrest  would  follow,  turned  to 
him  with  a  question : 

"Suppose  they  arrest  you,  Mr.  Parnell;  have  you 
any  instructions  to  give  us?  Who  will  take  your 
place  ?" 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      469 

The  leader  was  in  the  act  of  lifting  a  glass  of  wine 
to  his  lips.  Before  replying  he  held  the  wine  between 
himself  and  the  light  as  though  enjoying  the  color 
and  then,  just  as  he  was  about  to  place  it  to  his  lips, 
he  answered  with  a  smile : 

"Ah,  if  I  am  arrested  'Captain  Moonlight'  will  take 
my  place." 

Three  days  after  the  Wexford  speech  the  cabinet 
met  in  London  and  determined  upon  the  arrest  of  Par- 
nell. 

The  news  of  the  arrest  spread  rapidly.  In  England 
it  is  said  to  have  been  received  with  the  same  show  of 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  report  of  an  English  mili- 
tary victory  might  have  been  acclaimed.  In  Ireland 
the  country  went  temporarily  mad.  The  shops  were 
closed  in  towns  and  villages  as  for  a  funeral.  In  the 
city  of  Dublin  there  was  much  rioting  and  the  police 
were  forced  to  club  the  disturbers  into  submission.  In 
England  Parnell  was  hated  as  no  man  has  been  hated 
before  or  since.  In  Ireland  he  became  an  idol.  The 
Irish  fight  instantly  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  extrem- 
ists. The  strong  restraining  hand  was  withdrawn. 
The  reign  of  terror  followed.  And  Parnell  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Captain  Moonlight! 


While  England's  distinguished  prisoner,  comfort- 
ably situated  in  Kilmainham,  was  regaling  himself  with 
chess  the  conditions  in  Ireland,  no  longer  chargeable 
to  him,  grew  rapidly  worse.  The  most  frightful  out- 
rages were  committed,  increasing  in  number  and  enor- 
mity. The  country  was  bordering  on  a  state  of  an- 
archy.    The  officials  of  the  Castle  were  helpless  to 


470  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

combat  crime.  In  sheer  desperation  Lord  Cowper  and 
Forster  urgently  advocated  the  passage  of  more  strin- 
gent laws,  only  to  find  that  the  government  in  England 
was  meditating  compromise  v/ith  its  arch-enemy  in 
Kilmainham  prison. 

The  situation  was  unique  in  that  both  Gladstone  and 
Parnell,  but  recently  at  each  other's  throats,  found 
it  to  their  mutual  interest  to  negotiate  some  sort  of  a 
treaty  of  peace.  The  Irish  leader  noted  with  alarm 
the  rapidity  with  which  the  organized  opposition  to 
English  rule  was  degenerating  into  a  state  of  futile 
anarchy,  and  was  anxious  to  get  out  for  the  purpose 
of  stemming  the  tide  of  lawlessness  and  restraining  the 
extremists.  The  English  prime  minister  noticed  that 
the  withdrawal  of  Parnell  from  active  domination  of 
the  land  movement  had  resulted  in  all  but  converting 
a  constitutional  agitation  into  an  incendiary  rebellion 
impossible  to  subdue  without  the  shedding  of  much 
blood  and  the  further  embittering  of  the  Irish  people. 
Parnell  needed  Gladstone  to  get  out ;  Gladstone  needed 
Parnell  to  slow  up  the  land  movement.  Thus  the  sit- 
uation w^as  auspicious  for  negotiations.  Within  a 
short  time  these  negotiations  were  in  progress  through 
the  offices  of  Chamberlain,  Captain  O'Shea  and  Justin 
McCarthy.  The  result  was  an  understanding,  if  not 
a  compact,  as  has  been  denied,  to  the  effect  that  the 
government  agreed  to  pass  an  Arrears  act  to  provide 
for  such  of  the  tenants  as  were  unable  to  pay  their 
rent,  and  Parnell  agreed  to  slow  up  the  agitation  which 
had  become  a  nightmare  to  the  ministry.  With  this 
distinct  understanding,  treaty,  compact  or  what  not, 
Parnell  walked  out  of  Kilmainham  prison — a  free 
man. 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      471 

In  entering  into  this  agreement  Parnell  accomplished 
more,  perhaps,  than  Gladstone  anticipated — he  divided 
the  English  opposition  or  government  against  itself. 
Forster  and  Cowper,  feeling  themselves  repudiated 
through  the  treaty  with  their  arch-enemy,  instantly  re- 
signed and  the  former,  in  explaining  his  resignation 
to  the  house  of  commons,  hinted  rather  broadly  at  a 
bargain  between  the  prime  minister  and  Parnell — then 
an  unpardonable  offense  according  to  English  ethics. 
It  was  while  Forster  was  on  his  feet  and  in  the  midst 
of  his  denunciation  of  Parnell  that  the  Irish  leader 
entered  the  house,  fresh  from  Kilmainham.  He  w^as 
accorded  a  magnificent  ovation,  the  enthusiasm  being 
shared  by  a  large  portion  of  the  English  members.  It 
was  a  happy  hour  for  the  leader  of  the  Irish  party. 
The  policy  through  which  England  had  long  ruled  Ire- 
land was  by  dividing  the  Irish  against  themselves.  The 
situation  was  now  reversed.  When  Forster  sat  down 
Gladstone  rose  to  defend  the  action  of  Parnell  and 
himself — and  the  remarkable  spectacle  was  presented 
of  an  English  prime  minister  defending  an  Irish  leader 
against  the  attack  of  a  leading  member  of  his  own 
party.  At  the  conclusion  of  Gladstone's  speech  Par- 
nell, cold,  calm,  dignified,  concise,  made  a  brief  speech 
to  the  effect  that  in  the  event  of  the  passage  of  an  Ar- 
rears act  his  people  would  effect  material  changes  in 
the  lamentable  conditions  in  Ireland. 

But  alas!  there  was  always  a  Nemesis  on  the  trail 
of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  and  it  always  struck  on 
the  eve  of  a  great  triumph ! 

Hardly  had  the  scene  just  described  been  enacted 
in  the  house  of  commons  when  a  tragedy  that  sent  a 
thrill  of  horror  through  the  civilized  world  was  en- 


472  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

acted  in  Dublin.  The  government  had  sent  Earl  Spen- 
cer to  Ireland  as  lord  lieutenant  to  succeed  Cowper, 
and  the  popular  Lord  Cavendish  was  sent  as  chief  sec- 
retary to  succeed  the  impossible  Forster.  Both  offi- 
cials were  exceedingly  popular  and  both  were  men  of 
unusually  liberal  leanings.  This  was  especially  true 
of  Lord  Cavendish,  who  was  looked  upon  as  an  ex- 
ceptionally sympathetic  critic  of  Irish  affairs.  Among 
the  leaders  of  the  Irish  party  he  was  as  popular  as  it 
was  possible  for  an  English  official  to  be.  On  the  very 
day  the  new  officials  made  their  state  entrance  into 
Dublin  Lord  Cavendish,  while  walking  in  company 
with  Burke,  an  under-secretary,  through  Phcenix 
Park,  was  set  upon  by  a  number  of  ruffians  and  mur- 
dered. 

The  crime  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  all  over  the  world. 
Great  as  w^as  the  indignation  in  England,  it  could  not 
have  been  so  great  as  in  Ireland,  w^hich  was  destined 
to  pay  the  penalty  of  the  crime.  The  news  of  the 
crime  converted  Parnell,  the  cold,  calm  and  collected 
man,  into  a  madman  for  a  moment.  The  blow  fell 
upon  him  with  crushing  effect.  For  a  moment  he 
completely  lost  his  customary  composure,  and  like  a 
wild  man  he  rushed  to  the  Westminster  Palace  hotel 
and  into  the  room  of  Davitt,  where  he  threw  himself 
into  a  chair  with  the  declaration  of  his  determination 
to  retire  immediately  from  public  life.  "How  can  I 
carry  on  a  public  agitation  if  I  am  to  be  stabbed  in 
the  back  in  this  way?''  he  exclaimed  in  a  voice  broken 
with  emotion.  Notwithstanding  the  earnest  efforts  of 
his  friends  to  dissuade  him,  he  sat  down  and  penned 
a  note  to  Gladstone  which  was  delivered  to  the  prime 
minister  at  the  breakfast  table,  asking  his  advice  as 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      473 

to  the  propriety  of  his  withdrawal  from  public  af- 
fairs. 

It  is  to  the  infinite  credit  of  the  prime  minister  that 
he  strongly  advised  against  such  a  course  on  the 
ground  that  such  action  would  do  more  harm  than 
good.  Upon  the  receipt  of  Gladstone's  reply  Parnell 
prepared  a  manifesto  which  was  signed  by  Dillon, 
Davitt  and  himself  on  behalf  of  the  Irish  party,  bit- 
terly denouncing  the  crime;  and  when  the  house  met 
Parnell,  pale  and  careworn  like  a  sick  man,  rose  in 
his  place  and  in  the  midst  of  an  ominous  and  signifi- 
cant silence  condemned  the  crime  and  declared  it  to 
be  a  deadly  blow  at  the  Irish  party. 

This  miserable  crime  broke  in  sadly  upon  the  peace- 
ful plans  contemplated  in  the  treaty  of  Kilmainham. 
It  made  almost  inevitable  a  recurrence  to  coercion  in 
Ireland  and,  while  Parnell  fought  the  proposition,  he 
fought  hopelessly  handicapped  under  the  weight  of  the 
Phoenix  Park  murders.  Indeed,  his  biographer  tells 
us  that  he  scarcely  blamed  Gladstone  for  his  course. 
It  must  be  recorded,  however,  to  the  very  great  honor 
of  the  prime  minister,  that  he  proceeded  without  delay 
in  carrying  out  his  part  of  the  Kilmainham  agreement, 
and  an  Arrears  bill  was  presented  in  practically  the 
identical  form  in  which  Parnell  had  conceived  it.  This 
bill  provided  that  the  tenant  should  pay  the  rent  for 
the  year  1881  and  that  that  of  arrears  should  be  paid 
jointly  by  tenant  and  government,  provided  the  tenant 
should  be  able  to  satisfy  a  legal  tribunal  of  his  inability 
to  pay  the  whole.  This  bill  w^as  immediately  enacted 
and  Gladstone's  part  of  the  program  was  completed. 
Parnell  exerted  all  the  influence  he  possessed  to  live 
up  to  his  part  of  the  plan,  and  while  he  did  succeed 
in  slowing  down  the  agitation,  the  reversion  of  the 


474  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

government  to  coercive  measures  in  Ireland  placed  him 
at  a  painful  disadvantage. 

The  one  impressive  feature  of  this  period,  however, 
is  the  fact  that  he  walked  out  of  Kilmainham  prison 
with  an  Irish  concession  in  his  hand. 

VI 

It  soon  developed  that  the  understanding  between 
Parnell  and  Gladstone  was  a  gentleman's  agreement 
rather  than  an  alliance.  True  to  his  policy  the  Irish 
leader  accepted  the  Arrears  act  as  a  concession  to 
necessity  and  of  comparatively  small  moment,  and  al- 
most immediately  he  renewed  his  activities  with  in- 
creased earnestness.  That  his  hatred  and  contempt  for 
England  had  not  abated  one  whit  was  manifested  in 
a  striking  episode  in  the  house  of  commons  about  this 
time.  The  one  man  who  never  forgave  Parnell  for 
his  treaty  with  Gladstone  was  Forster,  and  we  shall 
find  him  from  time  to  time  recurring  to  his  attacks 
upon  the  Irish  leader — attacks  that  were  virulent,  vi- 
cious, unscrupulous,  dishonest.  The  Phoenix  Park 
murders  gave  him  an  early  opportunity  to  resume  his 
fight  on  Parnell,  and  in  a  bitter  attack  upon  the  char- 
acter of  his  enemy  he  attempted  to  trace  all  the  crimes 
that  had  been  committed  in  Ireland  to  his  door.  Dur- 
ing the  delivery  of  the  speech,  which  was  inflammatory 
and  provocative,  Parnell  sat  calmly  facing  Forster  with 
an  expression  of  scorn  which  sometimes  took  the  form 
of  a  sneer  upon  his  pale  face.  Only  once  did  he  mani- 
fest the  slightest  feeling. 

*lt  is  not  that  he  himself  directly  planned  or  per- 
petrated outrages,"  said  Forster,  "but  that  he  either 
connived  at  them  or  when  warned — " 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      475 

"It  is  a  lie,"  shouted  Parnell. 

That  was  all.  The  Irish  leader  was  instantly  a  mask 
again — cold,  imperturbable,  scornful.  It  w^as  the  ex- 
pectation that  Parnell  would  reply  the  moment  Forster 
resumed  his  seat.  This  idea,  however,  does  not  ap- 
pear to  have  entered  into  Parnell's  plans.  He  made 
no  motion  to  rise.  His  friends,  astonished,  gathered 
about  him,  urging  him  to  defend  himself,  but  he  re- 
fused until  the  importunities  of  his  lieutenants  became 
so  insistent  that  he  agreed.  On  the  day  announced 
for  the  reply  the  house  was  packed.  Among  the  celeb- 
rities in  the  galleries  was  the  Prince  of  Wales.  Par- 
nell sat  cold  and  calm  and  indifferent  among  his  fol- 
lowers, apparently  oblivious  to  the  tenseness  of  the 
feeling  of  the  house.  At  length  he  rose,  and  his  first 
sentence  was  an  expression  of  profound  contempt  for 
the  public  opinion  of  England: 

"I  have  been  accustomed  during  my  political  life,"  he 
began,  "to  rely  upon  the  opinion  of  those  whom  I  have 
desired  to  help,  and  widi  whose  aid  I  have  worked  for 
the  cause  of  prosperity  and  freedom  in  Ireland,  and  the 
utmost  I  desire  to  do  in  the  very  few  words  I  shall  ad- 
dress to  the  house  is  to  make  my  position  clear  to  the 
Irish  people  at  home  and  abroad." 

In  the  words  that  followed  he  treated  Forster  with 
open  contempt,  and  did  not  so  much  as  notice  the  vi- 
cious charges  the  former  secretary  had  made  against 
him.  This  had  the  effect  of  arousing  the  utmost  in- 
dignation in  England  and  of  aw^akening  the  liveliest 
enthusiasm  among  the  Irish  people,  who  gloried  in  a 
leader  who  had  the  audacity  to  stand  in  the  English 
house  of  commons  and  publicly  declare  that  the  good 


476  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

opinion  of  the  English  people  was  not  worth  the  cul- 
tivation. 

Meanwhile  the  conditions  in  Ireland  had  not  im- 
proved under  Earl  Spencer,  owing  in  part,  perhaps, 
to  the  return  to  coercion  Vv^hich  followed  the  Phoenix 
Park  murders,  and  the  country  vvas  saturated  with  se- 
dition. The  lord  lieutenant  himself  had  become  so  un- 
popular with  the  masses  that  he  only  ventured  into  the 
streets  under  the  protection  of  an  armed  escort.  The 
antipathy  of  the  Irish  people  to  Gladstone  was  so  pro- 
nounced that  his  appointee  in  Dublin  was  greeted  with 
cries  of  ''Down  with  Gladstone"  as  he  rode  through 
the  city.  With  his  finger  then  as  always  on  the  pubHc 
pulse,  Parnell  foresaw  that  the  prime  minister  was 
doom.ed,  and  he  determined  to  hasten  his  downfall  and 
precipitate  a  general  election.  This  anxiety  to  try  con- 
clusions at  the  polls  was  born  of  the  conviction  that 
the  newly  established  household  suffrage  which  in- 
creased the  voting  strength  of  Ireland  by  half  a  mil- 
lion votes  would  insure  the  Irish  party  a  following 
of  from  eighty  to  ninety  members  who  would  hold  the 
balance  of  power  as  between  the  English  parties. 

As  a  preliminary  step  Parnell  was  quietly  studying 
the  political  chessboard  and  fixing  his  estimates  of 
men.  It  appears  that  at  this  period  he  was  particularly 
interested  in  three  of  the  English  leaders.  Of  the 
three  he  w^as  partial  personally  to  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill.  It  is  hardly  probable  that  Parnell  ever 
really  loved  any  Englishman,  but  it  is  said  that  he 
entertained  a  kindlier  feeling  for  the  brilliant  young 
Tory  leader  than  for  any  other  man  in  public  life. 
The  clever  orator  and  game  fighter  appealed  to  him 
strongly  and  he  loved  to  lounge  in  the  smoking  room 
with  Lord  Randolph  to  enjoy  his  witticisms  and  quaint 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      477 

biting  characterizations.  He  felt,  too,  that  Churchill's 
generous  and  liberal  nature  and  friendly  attitude  to- 
ward the  Irish  people  gave  promise  of  future  services. 
As  to  his  attitude  toward  Home  R-ule  he  knew  little 
or  nothing,  but  he  looked  upon  the  Tory  iconoclast 
as  the  most  likely  of  the  English  statesmen  to  subscribe 
to  an  independent  parliament  for  Ireland.  He  doubted 
his  capacity  to  carry  the  Tory  party  with  him  even 
in  the  event  of  his  conversion  to  the  cause,  but  he 
felt  that  Lord  Randolph  with  his  marvelous  resource- 
fulness could  at  least  create  enough  sentiment  within 
that  party  to  give  serious  concern  to  the  liberals. 

Another  English  statesman  who  was  under  Parnell's 
observation  at  this  time  was  Joe  Chamberlain,  the  er- 
ratic and  brilliant  young  liberal  for  whom  he  enter- 
tained that  liking  which  is  born  of  admiration.  His 
analysis  of  Chamberlain's  predilections  led  him  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  member  for  Birmingham  would 
concede  everything  to  Ireland  short  of  Home  Rule, 
and  for  that  reason  he  decided  to  cultivate  friendly 
relations  w^ith  him  while  holding  him  at  a  distance. 

The  third  of  the  trio,  of  course,  was  Gladstone.  It 
appears  on  the  evidence  of  his  contemporaries  that 
Parnell  entertained  a  secret  dislike  for  the  liberal 
leader,  but  that  he  was  thoroughly  appreciative  of  his 
majestic  genius.  O'Brien  in  his  biography  says  that 
"man  for  man  he  would  rather  have  had  Gladstone  on 
his  side  than  any  man  in  England."  He  likewise  felt 
that  Gladstone  would  carry  more  strength  in  Ireland 
than  any  of  the  other  English  politicians. 

And  now  for  Parnell's  game — w4iat  was  it? 

Parnell  knew,  of  course,  that  the  three  politicians 
mentioned  were  all  hungry  for  office  and  for  power, 


478  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

and  he  proposed  to  muster  sufficient  numerical  strength 
in  the  Irish  party  to  make  it  impossible  for  any  of 
them  to  reach  power  without  dealing  directly  with  him. 
According  to  O'Brien,  his  plan  was  to  threaten  Cham- 
berlain with  Churchill  and  both  with  Gladstone  by 
making  it  clear  that  his  strength  would  go  to  the  one 
who  promised  the  most  to  Ireland.  As  a  preliminary 
he  proposed  to  give  a  practical  demonstration  of  his 
power  by  driving  Gladstone  from  office  and  compelling 
a  general  election.  In  the  meanwhile  he  had  an  un- 
derstanding with  Lord  Randolph  Churchill — an  under- 
standing which  has  been  subjected  to  many  interpre- 
tations. In  his  brilliant  biography  of  his  father, 
Winston  Churchill  rather  appears  to  resent  the  idea 
that  there  was  anything  like  a  compact  between  him 
and  the  Irish  leader,  but  Lord  Rosebery,  in  his  clever 
monograph  on  Lord  Randolph,  is  equally  convinced 
that  there  was  a  distinct  understanding.  It  seems  rea- 
sonable to  assume  that  Parnell  did  know  that  in  the 
event  the  liberals  should  be  thrown  out  and  the  Tories 
returned  to  office  there  would  be  no  renewal  of  the 
Crimes  act  in  the  event  Churchill  made  one  of  the 
new  government — an  event  that  was  practically  in- 
evitable. 

Thus  did  Parnell  lay  his  plans.  The  opportunity 
for  their  consummation  came  about  the  middle  of  May, 
1885,  when  Gladstone  announced  his  determination  to 
renew  the  Crimes  act.  The  bill  was  to  be  presented 
on  June  tenth.  The  Irish  leader  carefully  waited  for 
an  auspicious  opportunity  to  spring  upon  the  govern- 
ment, and  this  was  presented  on  June  eighth  on  the 
second  reading  of  the  budget.  An  amendment  was 
offered  by  a  Tory  leader  condemning  the  proposed  in- 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      479 

crease  of  the  duties  on  beer  and  spirits;  the  entire 
strength  of  the  Irish  party  was  thrown  by  Pamell  in 
favor  of  the  amendment,  and  the  government  was  de- 
feated. The  significance  of  the  overthrow  of  the  gov- 
ernment could  not  have  been  lost  on  Gladstone  when 
he  listened  to  the  lusty  shouts  of  the  Irish  members, 
"Remember  coercion."  The  first  part  of  Parnell's  pro- 
gram had  been  followed  to  a  successful  conclusion. 

Within  a  month  the  Tories  were  in  office  with  Lord 
Salisbury  as  prime  minister.  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach 
as  chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  Lord  Churchill  as  sec- 
retary of  state  for  India  and  the  Earl  of  Carnarvon 
as  lord  lieutenant  for  Ireland.  It  was  not  necessary 
for  Parnell  to  remind  the  Tory  government  of  its  ob- 
ligations to  the  Irish  party,  for  the  liberals  attended 
to  that.  John  Morley,  commenting  upon  the  situation 
at  the  time,  said :  "As  for  the  new  government,  sharp 
critics — and  some  of  the  sharpest  are  to  be  found  on 
their  own  benches — do  not  shrink  from  declaring  that 
they  come  into  power  as  Mr.  Parnell's  lieutenants. 
His  vote  has  installed,  it  can  displace  them ;  it  has  its 
price  and  the  price  will  be  paid.  In  the  whole  trans- 
action the  Irish  not  only  count,  they  count  almost  for 
everything." 

Nor  were  the  Tories  unmindful  of  their  obligation. 
They  refused  to  renew  the  Crimes  act  in  Ireland. 
Lord  Carnarvon  publicly  announced  his  determination 
to  rule  in  Ireland  by  the  ordinary  law.  When  Parnell 
asked  for  an  inquiry  into  the  trials  of  the  Maamtrasna 
murderers  and  the  liberals,  interpreting  the  demand  as 
a  reflection  upon  the  administration  of  the  Earl  Spen- 
cer, set  up  a  cry  of  protest,  the  Tories  granted  the  re^ 
quest.    The  Tories  became  more  liberal  than  the  lib- 


480  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

erals.  All  the  leaders  of  the  party  in  power  assumed 
the  most  cordial  attitude  toward  Parnell  and  this  was 
especially  true  of  Lord  Churchill,  who  was  probably 
the  most  sincere  of  the  lot.  Taking  advantage  of  his 
brief  summer,  Parnell  demanded  a  new  Land  bill  and 
one  was  promptly  passed  empowering  the  state  to  ad- 
vance a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  purchase  money  to 
tenants  who  had  agreed  with  their  landlords  to  buy 
their  holdings  and  allowing  forty-nine  years  for  re- 
payment at  four  per  cent,  interest. 

Then  came  the  famous  Carnarvon  incident  on  the 
eve  of  the  elections. 

In  the  elections  which  followed  the  dissolution  of 
parliament  Parnell  entered  the  campaign  with  but  one 
plank  in  his  platform,  and  that  declaring  for  Home 
Rule.  He  delivered  his  keynote  at  a  meeting  in  Dub- 
lin in  the  latter  part  of  August  when  he  said : 

"I  say  that  each  and  all  of  us  have  only  looked  upon 
the  acts — ^the  legislative  enactments  which  we  have  been 
able  to  wring  from  an  unwilling  parliament — as  means 
toward  an  end ;  that  we  would  have  at  any  time,  in  the 
hours  of  our  deepest  depression  and  greatest  discourage- 
ment, spurned  and  rejected  any  measure,  however  tempt- 
ing and  however  apparently  for  the  benefit  of  our  peo- 
ple, if  we  had  been  able  to  detect  that  behind  it  lurked 
any  danger  to  the  legislative  independence  of  our  land. 
.  .  .  It  is  admitted  by  all  parties  that  you  have  brought 
the  question  of  Irish  legislative  independence  to  the  point 
of  solution.  It  is  not  now  a  question  of  self-government 
for  Ireland;  it  is  only  a  question  as  to  how  much  of 
self-government  they  will  be  able  to  cheat  us  out  of.  It 
is  not  now  a  question  as  to  whether  the  Irish  people 
shall  decide  their  own  destinies  and  their  own  future, 
but  it  is  a  question  with — I  was  going  to  say  our  English 
masters,  but  we  can  not  call  them  masters  in  Ireland — ^ 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      481 

it  is  a  question  with  them  as  to  how  far  the  day,  that 
they  consider  the  evil  day,  shall  be  deferred.  You  are 
therefore  entitled  to  say  that  so  far  you  have  done  well, 
you  have  almost  done  miraculously  well,  and  we  hand 
to  our  successors  an  unsullied  flag,  a  battle  more  than 
half  won,  and  a  brilliant  history.  ...  I  hope  it  may 
not  be  necessary  for  us  in  the  new  parliament  to  devote 
our  attention  to  subsidiary  measures,  and  that  it  may  be 
possible  for  us  to  have  a  program  and  a  platform  with 
only  one  plank — national  independence." 

This  bold  pronouncement  coming  so  soon  after  Par- 
nell's  practical  demonstration  of  the  power  of  the  Irish 
party  over  English  governments  created  a  feeling  of 
mingled  indignation  and  alarm  in  England,  and  a  tre- 
mendous howl  went  up  from  the  English  press  declar- 
ing the  program  announced  to  be  impossible,  ridicu- 
lous. Lord  Hartington,  a  liberal  leader,  formally 
replied  to  the  effect  that  however  much  English  par- 
ties might  be  divided  on  other  propositions  they  were 
united  in  their  opposition  to  the  Parnell  program.  This 
supercilious  statement  was  instantly  met  by  the  Irish 
leader  in  a  banquet  speech  in  Dublin  in  early  Septem- 
ber when  he  said : 

*T  believe  that  if  it  be  sought  to  make  it  impossible 
for  our  country  to  obtain  the  right  to  administer  her 
own  affairs,  we  shall  make  all  other  things  impossible 
for  those  who  strive  to  bring  that  about.  And  who  is 
it  that  tells  us  that  these  things  are  impossible?  It  was 
the  same  man  who  said  that  local  government  for  Ire- 
land was  impossible  without  impossible  declarations  on 
our  part.  These  statements  came  from  the  lips  that  told 
us  that  the  concession  of  equal  electoral  privileges  to 
Ireland  with  those  in  England  would  be  madness;  and 
we  see  that  what  was  considered  madness  in  the  eyes 
of  the  man  who  now  tells  us  that  Ireland's  right  to  self- 


4^  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

government  is  an  impossibility,  has  been  now  conceded 
without  opposition,  and  that  the  local  self-government 
which  was  then  also  denied  to  us  from  the  same  source 
is  now  offered  to  us  by  the  same  person,  with  the  hum- 
ble entreaty  that  we  take  it  in  order  that  we  may  educate 
ourselves  for  better  things  and  for  further  powers.  .  .  . 
Well,  gentlemen,  I  am  not  much  given  to  boasting,  and 
I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  assume  for  myself  the  role 
of  prophet;  but  I  am  obliged,  I  confess,  to-night  to  give 
you  my  candid  opinion,  and  it  is  this — ^that  if  they  have 
not  succeeded  in  squelching  us  during  the  last  five  years, 
they  are  not  likely  to  do  so  during  the  next  five  years 
unless  they  brace  themselves  up  to  adopt  one  of  two  al- 
ternatives, by  the  adoption  of  either  one  of  which  we 
should  ultimately  win,  and  perhaps  win  a  larger  and 
heavier  stake  than  we  otherwise  should.  They  will  either 
have  to  grant  to  Ireland  the  complete  right  to  rule  her- 
self, or  they  will  have  to  take  away  from  us  the  share 
— the  sham  share — in  the  English  constitutional  system 
which  they  extended  to  us  at  the  union,  and  govern  us 
as  a  crown  colony." 

In  declarations  such  as  this  Parnell  forced  the  Eng- 
lish parties  to  take  cognizance  during  the  campaign 
of  the  existence  of  an  Irish  question  and  an  Irish 
party.  Neither  party  stood  pledged  to  Home  Rule. 
Both  parties  feared  the  effect  of  the  united  Irish  op- 
position. The  leaders  of  all  parties  entered  upon  a 
furious  flirtation  with  Parnell — a  flirtation  not  in- 
tended seriously.  Some  of  the  leaders,  such  as 
Churchill,  maintained  absolute  silence  on  the  subject. 
Chamberlain  spoke  out  plainly  against  Parnell's  pro- 
gram. John  Morley  deftly  touched  upon  the  subject 
and  held  forth  a  shadowy  suggestion  of  some  settle- 
ment such  as  in  Canada.  Lord  Salisbury,  in  his 
speeches,  rather  stunned  his  followers — not  by  accept- 
ing the  Parnell  plan,  for  he  did  not,  but  by  the  con- 


CHARLES    STEWART   PARNELL      483 

servative  and  half  timid  nature  of  his  opposition. 
Meanwhile  Gladstone — greatest  politician  of  them  all 
— was  diplomatically  disseminating  the  idea  that  he 
was  seriously  considering  the  question  of  Home  Rule 
and  was  sympathetically  inclined.  In  early  November 
he  delivered  a  queer  pronouncement  at  Edinburgh  in  a 
speech  of  two  parts  with  two  meanings,  one  hinting 
unmistakably  at  Home  Rule,  the  other  indicating  op- 
position. This  was  instantly  met  by  Pamell,  who  ig- 
nored the  second  portion  of  the  speech,  grasped  the 
first  part  holding  forth  hope  and  tried  to  persuade  the 
old  man  of  Hawarden  to  go  further.  To  this  Glad- 
stone replied,  like  a  clever  flirt,  with  some  gentle  banter 
and  upon  this  Parnell  determined  to  throw  his  support 
to  the  Tories. 

"Ireland,"  he  said,  "has  been  knocking  at  the  English 
door  long  enough  with  kid  gloves.  I  tell  the  English 
people  to  beware  and  to  be  wise  in  time.  Ireland  will 
soon  throw  off  the  kid  gloves,  and  she  will  knock  with 
the  mailed  hand." 

Then  followed  a  manifesto  to  the  voters  bitterly 
denouncing  the  liberals  for  their  misgovernment  of 
Ireland.  This  greatly  surprised  and  hurt  Gladstone, 
and  Salisbury,  the  Tory  leader,  was  seriously  con- 
cerned lest  the  manifesto  in  the  interest  of  his  party 
prove  disadvantageous  in  the  English  constituencies. 
Such  was  the  ludicrous  character  of  the  campaign. 
Feeling  a  profound  contempt  for  both  of  the  English 
parties,  Parnell  threw  himself  w^ith  all  his  power  into 
the  campaign  in  Ireland  and  when  the  result  was  an- 
nounced it  was  found  that  he  had  swept  Ireland  from 
end  to  end,  had  captured  half  of  Ulster  and  would 


484  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

enter  the  house  of  commons  with  eighty-six  followers 
at  his  back.  The  result  in  England  gave  the  liberals 
three  hundred  and  thirty-three,  the  conservatives  two 
hundred  and  fifty-one — which  meant  that  Parnell  by 
throwing  his  eighty-six  votes  into  the  conservative 
camp  would  give  Salisbury  a  majority  of  four,  and 
that  by  an  alliance  with  the  liberals  Gladstone  would 
be  able  to  accomplish  anything  within  reason  with  a 
lead  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-nine.  Thus  Parnell  was 
the  one  man  who  emerged  from  the  elections  of  1885 
in  the  light  of  a  victor,  for  he  held  the  balance  of 
power  and  was  absolute  master  of  the  situation. 


VII 


From  the  moment  the  result  of  the  election  was 
known  Parnell  lost  no  time  in  serving  notice  that  he 
proposed  to  use  his  balance  of  power  relentlessly  to 
the  end  that  no  government  would  be  permitted  to  dis- 
pose of  any  public  business  which  did  not  contemplate 
an  immediate  consideration  of  the  question  of  Home 
Rule.  Lord  Salisbury,  the  prime  minister,  realizing 
his  inability  to  carry  his  party  with  him  on  the  prop- 
osition, lost  all  interest  in  the  erstwhile  Irish  alliance, 
although  it  appears  that  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  did 
all  he  could  within  the  cabinet  to  preserve  the  relations 
of  the  two  parties.  It  was  after  his  failure  that  he 
made  the  characteristically  cynical  remark  ascribed  to 
him  by  T.  P.  O'Connor  in  The  Great  Irish  Struggle, 
*T  have  done  my  best  for  you  and  have  failed;  and 
now,  of  course,  I  shall  do  m}^  best  against  you."  The 
situation  presented  an  entirely  different  aspect  to  Glad- 
stone, who  entered  into  negotiations  with  Parnell  with 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      485 

a  view  to  a  workable  alliance  looking  toward  the  con- 
cession of  the  Irish  contention.  The  Irish  leader  gave 
the  liberal  leader  to  understand  that  with  an  Irish  par- 
liament and  an  Irish  executive  conceded  he  would  not 
quarrel  with  the  prospective  liberal  government  re- 
garding whether  there  should  be  one  or  two  chambers 
in  the  Dublin  parliament,  or  whether  there  should  or 
should  not  be  an  Irish  representation  at  Westminster. 
With  this  understanding  Gladstone  now  inspired  a 
story  in  the  press  to  the  effect  that  he  was  prepared 
to  take  up  the  question  of  Home  Rule.  Such  was 
the  state  of  the  parties  at  the  time  parliament  con- 
vened in  January,  1886.  Quite  soon  after  the  meet- 
ing of  parliament  Gladstone  submitted  his  propositions 
to  Parnell  in  written  form  through  a  third  person,  who 
was  instructed  to  read  the  proposals  to  the  Irish  leader 
but  to  retain  possession  of  the  memorandum.  It  was 
characteristic  of  Parnell  that  he  should  have  coolly 
taken  the  paper  from  the  hands  of  the  messenger  and 
have  put  it  in  his  pocket  with  the  remark  that  he  would 
prepare  a  reply  without  delay.  The  following  day 
Parnell  notified  the  liberal  leader  of  his  acceptance  of 
the  general  propositions  submitted  to  his  consideration. 
All  this  transpired,  of  course,  with  the  Tory  govern- 
ment still  holding  on  by  its  eyebrows. 

The  alliance  between  Gladstone  and  Parnell,  how- 
ever, spelt  the  downfall  of  the  Salisbury  ministry  and 
when,  in  the  latter  part  of  January,  Lord  Churchill 
presented  a  bill  for  the  suppression  of  the  Land  League 
the  Irish  party  was  left  free  to  strike,  and  the  blow 
fell  within  a  few  days  and  Gladstone  returned  to  power 
with  the  Irish  party  at  his  back. 

During  the  period  when  the  Home-Rule  bill  of  1886 


486  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

was  in  preparation  Parnell  was  in  close  and  constant 
communication  with  Morley,  who  has  given  us,  in  his 
biography  of  Gladstone,  many  intensely  interesting 
side-lights  upon  the  activities  and  characteristics  of  the 
Irish  leader.  He  impressed  Morley,  one  of  the  most 
erudite  and  brilliant  of  modern  English  statesmen, 
with  his  frankness,  patience,  pertinacity,  accuracy  and 
insight.  "Of  constructive  faculty  he  never  showed  a 
trace,"  says  Morley.  "He  was  a  man  of  temperament, 
of  will,  of  authority,  of  power;  not  of  ideas  or  ideals, 
or  knowledge,  or  political  maxims,  or  even  of  the  prac- 
tical reason  in  any  of  its  higher  senses,  as  Hamilton, 
Madison  and  Jefferson  had  practical  reason.  But  he 
knew  what  he  wanted." 

And  therein  consisted  his  greatness  in  the  negotia- 
tions of  ^86 — ^he  knew  precisely  what  he  wanted.  He 
was  willing  to  agree  to  a  temporary  exclusion  of  Irish 
representation  at  Westminster.  He  was  willing  to  con- 
sent to  any  arrangement  that  might  be  submitted  rela- 
tive to  the  constitution  of  the  two  houses  of  an  Irish 
parliament,  although  he  had  a  partiality  for  a  single 
chamber.  His  principal  fight  seems  to  have  centered 
in  an  effort  to  exact  the  best  possible  financial  arrange- 
ments for  his  country.  Upon  this  point  he  was  insist- 
ent. Morley  relates  the  story  of  one  evening  when  he 
spent  two  hours  with  Parnell  wrestling  with  the  ques- 
tion of  taxes  and  customs,  and  another  hour  and  a 
half  after  Gladstone  had  been  summoned.  When  the 
prime  minister  excused  himself  at  midnight  he  mut- 
tered under  his  breath  to  Morley,  who  accompanied 
him  to  the  door,  "Very  clever,  very  clever."  Return- 
ing to  Parnell,  the  conference  continued — Parnell  po- 
lite, imperturbable,  insistent,  tireless. 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      487 

At  length  the  bill  was  made  acceptable  and  presented. 
In  the  midst  of  the  utmost  excitement,  in  the  presence 
of  the  most  distinguished  company,  Gladstone  made 
the  first  of  his  majestic  speeches  on  the  subject  which 
will  do  more  to  preserve  his  fame  than  any  other  mat- 
ter with  which  his  career  is  associated.  While  the 
Irish  members  were  seething  with  enthusiasm  the 
leader  of  the  Irish  party  sat  in  their  midst,  pale,  cold, 
tranquil — but  watchful,  always  watchful. 

Meanwhile  the  enemies  of  Home  Rule  multiplied 
their  activities.  The  bigots  of  Ulster  began  to  organ- 
ize their  little  rebellion.  The  bigots  of  England  began 
to  mutter  their  hypocritical  prayers  for  protection 
against  the  Pope.  The  milk-and-water  liberals  com- 
menced to  waver  and  fall  out  of  line  before  the  at- 
tacks of  the  enemy.  The  one  phase  of  the  situation, 
however,  injected  by  Gladstone,  which  occasioned  the 
greatest  concern  in  all  quarters  and  did  the  greatest 
damage  to  the  cause  was  that  which  hinged  upon  the 
government's  Land  bill,  which  was  tied  to  and  made 
a  part  of  the  Home-Rule  bill.  This  was  intended  to 
pave  the  way  for  a  peasant  proprietary  and  provided 
for  a  twenty-year  purchase  of  land  by  the  state  and 
the  sale  of  the  land  to  the  tenants — the  state  also  to 
advance  the  purchase  money  and  give  the  tenants 
forty-nine  years  to  pay  it  back.  During  this  time  a 
receiver-general  was  to  be  appointed  to  receive  the 
rents  and  revenues.  No  one  appeared  to  be  wholly 
satisfied  with  the  proposed  plan.  The  Irish,  who  ac- 
cepted it  as  a  matter  of  policy,  were  dissatisfied  with 
the  receiver-general.  The  liberals  did  not  like  the 
heavy  public  expenditure  entailed  and  the  landlords 
were  naturally   bitterly  antagonistic.     The  uprising 


488  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

against  the  Land  bill  finally  became  so  ominous  that 
Gladstone  practically  agreed  to  throw  it  over,  and  then 
centered  his  efforts  on  mustering  a  majority  on  the 
second  reading  of  the  Home-Rule  measure.  In  the 
meanwhile,  Chamberlain,  who  probably  entered  the 
cabinet  for  the  purpose  of  leaving  his  leader  in  the 
lurch,  had  resigned,  and  some  of  the  liberal  aristocrats 
were  in  open  revolt,  appearing  at  public  meetings  on 
the  same  platform  with  Salisbury.  The  most  damag- 
ing defection,  however,  was  that  of  the  venerable  John 
Bright,  who  cast  a  shadow  on  his  renown  by  turning 
his  back  upon  the  race  he  had  so  brilliantly  served  in 
former  years  at  the  very  moment  when  the  weight  of 
his  genius  was  needed  most.  But  Gladstone  fought 
on  like  a  tiger — a  magnificent,  compelling  figure  to  the 
last. 

It  was  not  until  the  last  night  of  the  debate  that 
Parnell  participated  in  the  discussion.  At  that  time 
the  defeat  of  the  measure  was  almost  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. Under  the  depressing  atmosphere  of  impend- 
ing defeat,  he  spoke  with  more  than  his  accustomed 
vigor : 

"During  the  last  five  years  I  know,  Sir,  that  there 
have  been  very  severe  and  drastic  coercion  bills,  but  it 
will  require  an  even  severer  and  more  drastic  coercion 
now.  You  will  require  all  that  you  have  had  during  the 
last  five  years  and  more  besides.  What,  Sir,  has  that 
coercion  been  ?  You  have  had.  Sir,  during  those  last  five 
years — I  don't  say  this  to  inflame  passion — you  have  had 
during  those  five  years  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  act;  you  have  had  one  thousand  of  your  fellow 
Irish  subjects  held  in  prison  without  specific  charge,  many 
of  them  for  long  periods  of  time,  some  of  them  for 
twenty  months  without  trial,  and  without  any  intention 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      489 

of  placing  them  upon  trial ;  you  have  had  the  Arms  act ; 
you  have  had  the  suspension  of  trial  by  jury — all  during 
the  last  five  years.  You  have  authorized  your  police  to 
enter  the  domicile  of  a  citizen,  of  your  fellow  subject 
in  Ireland,  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  and  search 
any  part  of  this  domicile,  even  the  beds  of  the  women, 
without  warrant.  You  have  fined  the  innocent  for  of- 
fenses committed  by  the  guilty,  you  have  taken  power 
to  expel  aliens  from  the  country,  you  have  revived  the 
curfew  law  and  the  blood  money  of  your  Norman  con- 
querors, you  haye  gagged  the  press  and  seized  and  sup- 
pressed newspapers,  you  have  manufactured  new  crimes 
and  offenses,  and  applied  fresh  penalties  unknown  to  your 
law  for  these  crimes  and  offenses.  All  this  you  have  done 
for  five  years — and  much  more  you  will  have  to  do 
again." 

It  was  this  speech  which  Morley  pronounces  "the 
most  masterly  that  ever  fell  from  him."  But  it  was  of 
no  avail.  Gladstone  closed  the  debate  for  the  ministry 
in  one  of  his  most  powerful  and  eloquent  orations,  but 
it  availed  nothing.  It  was  reason  bumping  its  head 
against  the  inanimate  brick  wall  of  bigotry.  The  vote 
was  taken  and  the  government  was  defeated  by  three 
hundred  and  forty-three  to  three  hundred  and  thirteen 
— ninety-three  liberal  traitors  having  turned  the  trick. 

The  fall  of  the  liberal  ministry  was  followed  by  a 
dissolution  and  an  appeal  to  the  country  which  will  go 
down  in  history  as  one  of  the  most  inspiring  and  bril- 
liant and  spectacular  in  the  history  of  English  politics 
because  of  the  magnificent  orations  with  which  Glad- 
stone, the  giant,  bombarded  the  castle  of  the  bigots. 
Thus  had  a  wonderful  political  revolution  been 
wrought  through  the  far-seeing  sagacity  and  diplo- 
macy of  Parnell.  Hardly  more  than  a  year  before  the 
liberals  had  been  a  unit  in  their  fight  upon  the  pro- 


492  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

moderate  and  the  conservative.  By  subordinating 
himself  to  Gladstone,  he  was  making  the  Home- Rule 
cause,  the  cause  of  the  most  popular  political  leader 
in  the  England  from  which,  alone,  Home  Rule  could 
be  conceded. 

VIII 

The  masterly  manner  in  which  Parnell  had  so  di- 
rected events  as  to  make  it  incumbent  upon  one  of  the 
leading  English  parties  to  stand  sponsor  for  Home 
Rule  was  maddening  to  the  enemies  of  Ireland.  As 
Gladstone  continued  with  unabated  energy  his  bril- 
liant advocacy  of  the  proposals  of  Parnell,  the  Tory 
element  and  the  aristocratic  section  of  the  liberal 
party  v/ere  made  to  understand  that  the  Irish  question 
had  been  introduced  for  good  into  English  politics  un- 
less something  should  develop  to  compromise  and  dis- 
credit the  Home-Rule  cause.  The  more  unscrupulous 
of  the  enemies  of  this  cause  commenced  to  apply  their 
ingenuity  and  inventive  genius  to  the  discovery  of 
some  crime  traceable  to  the  door  of  the  Irish  leader. 
Thus  in  1887  the  London  Times ^  which  has  continued 
unto  the  present  hour  to  misrepresent  the  conditions  in 
Ireland  and  the  cause  of  the  Irish  people,  began  the 
publication  of  a  series  of  articles  under  the  sensational 
caption  of  Parnellism  and  Crime.  (These  articles 
were  of  no  importance,  being  nothing  more  than  the 
rinsings  of  the  dirty  partisan  pot — an  indiscriminate 
enumeration  of  outrages  and  all  ascribed  by  inuendo 
and  insinuation  to  the  leader  of  the  Irish  people.)  The 
Times  realized  the  weakness  of  its  case  and  was  ex- 
tremely anxious  for  something  of  a  really  compromis- 
ing nature  to  use  against  Parnell. 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      493 

It  was  about  this  time  that  a  discredited  and  rather 
mediocre  Irish  journaHst,  Richard  Pigott,  reduced  to 
the  necessity  of  hving  on  his  wits,  took  notice  of  the 
necessities  of  the  Times. 

Cunning  suggested  the  forging  of  Parnell's  name  to 
a  compromising  letter  and  the  selHng  of  the  letter  to 
the  most  dignified  and  respectable  journal,  according 
to  English  public  opinion,  in  the  empire.  The  letter 
was  prepared  and  couched  in  such  terms  as  to  create 
in  a  reader  the  positive  conviction  that  the  author  was 
in  possession  of  a  guilty  knowledge  of  the  Phoenix 
Park  murders.  To  this  infam.ous  letter  Pigott  scrib- 
bled the  name  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  It  is  al- 
most inconceivable  that  a  paper  like  the  London  Times 
should  have  had  the  temerity  to  accept  and  publish 
such  a  letter — but  the  Times  made  it  the  crowning  fea- 
ture of  its  exposure  of  Parnellism  and  Crime.  Upon 
the  publication  of  the  forged  letter  the  liberals  and 
Gladstone  manifested  the  keenest  concern.  It  was 
characteristic  of  Parnell  that  he  should  have  consid- 
ered the  Times  articles  with  their  purchased  letter  be- 
neath his  notice.  The  nervousness  of  his  liberal  al- 
lies, however,  finally  impelled  him  to  pronounce  calmly 
the  letter  a  forgery  in  a  rather  indifferent  speech  in 
the  house  of  commons.  His  very  moderation  of  lan- 
guage alarmed  his  friends  in  the  liberal  party,  and 
finally,  in  a  disgusted  frame  of  mind,  he  demanded 
the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  of  the  house  to 
institute  a  thorough  investigation. 

During  his  connection  with  Irish  affairs  Parnell  had 
come  to  know  Pigott  very  well,  too  well.  He  had  in 
his  possession  letters  from  the  forger  and  he  knew 
something  about  the  financial  difficulties  and  the  crimi- 


492  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

moderate  and  the  conservative.  By  subordinating 
himself  to  Gladstone,  he  was  making  the  Home-Rule 
cause,  the  cause  of  the  most  popular  political  leader 
in  the  England  from  which,  alone.  Home  Rule  could 
be  conceded. 

VIII 

The  masterly  manner  in  which  Pamell  had  so  di- 
rected events  as  to  make  it  incumbent  upon  one  of  the 
leading  English  parties  to  stand  sponsor  for  Home 
Rule  was  maddening  to  the  enemies  of  Ireland.  As 
Gladstone  continued  with  unabated  energy  his  bril- 
liant advocacy  of  the  proposals  of  Parnell,  the  Tory 
element  and  the  aristocratic  section  of  the  liberal 
party  were  made  to  understand  that  the  Irish  question 
had  been  introduced  for  good  into  English  politics  un- 
less something  should  develop  to  compromise  and  dis- 
credit the  Home-Rule  cause.  The  more  unscrupulous 
of  the  enemies  of  this  cause  commenced  to  apply  their 
ingenuity  and  inventive  genius  to  the  discovery  of 
some  crime  traceable  to  the  door  of  the  Irish  leader. 
Thus  in  1887  the  London  Times,  which  has  continued 
unto  the  present  hour  to  misrepresent  the  conditions  in 
Ireland  and  the  cause  of  the  Irish  people,  began  the 
publication  of  a  series  of  articles  under  the  sensational 
caption  of  Parnellism  and  Crime.  (These  articles 
were  of  no  importance,  being  nothing  more  than  the 
rinsings  of  the  dirty  partisan  pot — an  indiscriminate 
enumeration  of  outrages  and  all  ascribed  by  inuendo 
and  insinuation  to  the  leader  of  the  Irish  people.)  The 
Times  realized  the  weakness  of  its  case  and  was  ex- 
tremely anxious  for  something  of  a  really  compromis- 
ing nature  to  use  against  Parnell. 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      493 

It  was  about  this  time  that  a  discredited  and  rather 
mediocre  Irish  journaHst,  Richard  Pigott,  reduced  to 
the  necessity  of  hving  on  his  wits,  took  notice  of  the 
necessities  of  the  Times. 

Cunning  suggested  the  forging  of  Parnell's  name  to 
a  compromising  letter  and  the  selling  of  the  letter  to 
the  most  dignified  and  respectable  journal,  according 
to  English  public  opinion,  in  the  empire.  The  letter 
was  prepared  and  couched  in  such  terms  as  to  create 
in  a  reader  the  positive  conviction  that  the  author  was 
in  possession  of  a  guilty  knowledge  of  the  Phoenix 
Park  murders.  To  this  infam.ous  letter  Pigott  scrib- 
bled the  name  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  It  is  al- 
most inconceivable  that  a  paper  like  the  London  Times 
should  have  had  the  temerity  to  accept  and  publish 
such  a  letter — but  the  Times  made  it  the  crowning  fea- 
ture of  its  exposure  of  ParncUism  and  Crime.  Upon 
the  publication  of  the  forged  letter  the  liberals  and 
Gladstone  manifested  the  keenest  concern.  It  was 
characteristic  of  Parnell  that  he  should  have  consid- 
ered the  Times  articles  with  their  purchased  letter  be- 
neath his  notice.  The  nervousness  of  his  liberal  al- 
lies, however,  finally  impelled  him  to  pronounce  calmly 
the  letter  a  forgery  in  a  rather  indifferent  speech  in 
the  house  of  commons.  His  very  moderation  of  lan- 
guage alarmed  his  friends  in  the  liberal  party,  and 
finally,  in  a  disgusted  frame  of  mind,  he  demanded 
the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  of  the  house  to 
institute  a  thorough  investigation. 

During  his  connection  with  Irish  affairs  Parnell  had 
come  to  know  Pigott  very  well,  too  well.  He  had  in 
his  possession  letters  from  the  forger  and  he  knew 
something  about  the  financial  difficulties  and  the  crimi- 


494  THE   IRISH    ORATORS  ' 

nal  capabilities  of  the  journalist.  It  appears  that 
when  Parnell  sat  down  to  a  critical  study  of  the  forged 
letter  he  had  Pigott  in  mind  as  the  possible  author. 
Immediately  he  hit  upon  the  misspelling  of  the  word 
"hesitancy,"  which  was  spelled  with  an  "e"  instead  of 
an  "a,"  and  he  recalled  having  received  a  letter  from 
Pigott  in  which  the  same  word  had  been  employed 
and  the  identical  mistake  had  been  made.  With  this 
and  this  alone  as  a  clew  Pigott  was  summoned  to 
London  and  upon  his  arrival  he  was  enticed  to  a  meet- 
ing with  the  brilliant  Henry  Labouchere — the  wasp  of 
English  journalism,  and  one  of  the  clever  iconoclasts 
and  free  lances  of  the  commons.  Subjected  to  a  rigid 
cross-examination,  Pigott  finally  made  a  confession, 
but  on  the  following  day  he  regained  his  nerve  and  re- 
fused to  repeat  his  confession  to  the  public  and  denied 
ever  having  made  it. 

Throughout  the  long-drawn  legal  battle  Parnell' s 
friends  were  increasingly  alarmed.  The  leader  him- 
self appeared  on  the  surface  to  be  contemptuously  in- 
different. It  was  not  until  Pigott  was  called  to  the 
stand  and  subjected  to  a  remarkable  cross-examination 
by  Sir  Charles  Russell  that  the  Irish  leader  began  to 
get  his  inning.  Never  perhaps  in  any  court  at  any 
time  has  any  witness  ever  received  such  a  grilling  as 
fell  to  the  lot  of  the  scoundrel  at  the  hands  of  Russell. 
Before  the  almost  cruel  bombardment  of  questions 
the  wretched  forger  gradually  weakened,  and  when  he 
left  the  stand  for  the  noon  recess  on  the  final  day  of 
his  cross-examination,  it  was  remarked  that  he  would 
not  return.  The  prediction  came  true.  Pigott  made 
his  escape  from  England.    A  few  days  later  he  made 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELU      495 

an  admission  of  his  guilt — and  a  little  later  the  world 
learned  of  his  suicide.  Thus  fell,  most  miserably  and 
shamefully,  the  case  of  the  London  Times  against 
Charles  Stewart  Parnell. 

The  result  was  an  immediate  and  tremendous  re- 
action in  his  favor.  The  enthusiasm  of  his  friends 
was  boundless.  The  chagrin  of  his  enemies  was  deep. 
The  gratitude  of  the  liberals  manifested  itself  in  the 
utmost  jubilation.  The  scene  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons on  his  first  appearance  after  his  triumphant  vin- 
dication has  had  few  parallels  in  the  history  of  the 
parliament.  He  was  late  on  reaching  Westminster 
and  his  approach  was  heralded  to  the  waiting  members 
by  the  shouting  of  the  multitudes  in  the  streets.  His 
entrance  was  the  signal  for  an  ovation.  Almost  imme- 
diately after  entering  the  house  he  rose  to  speak.  As 
he  stood  there,  extremely  pale,  his  handsome  features 
disclosing  no  emotion,  the  Irish  members  began  to 
cheer.  Then  with  a  shout  they  jumped  to  their  feet. 
The  enthusiasm  was  contagious.  The  members  of  the 
liberal  party  who  had  been  made  to  suffer  during  the 
progress  of  the  trial,  threw  aside  their  dignity  and 
rose  to  their  feet  in  imitation  of  the  more  inflammable 
Irish.  It  was  a  scene  never  before  witnessed  in  the 
house  of  commons — an  English  party  joining  in  an 
inspiring  tribute  to  a  hated  Irish  leader.  And  then  the 
climax  of  it  all  came  when  no  less  a  personage  than 
William  Ewart  Gladstone  stood  up  and  with  a  beam- 
ing face  turned  in  welcoming  attitude  toward  Pamell. 
His  example  was  enough.  Instantly  former  members 
of  English  cabinets  were  on  their  feet — and  the  ova- 
tion continued.    And  all  the  while  Pamell  stood,  pale 


496  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

to  the  lips,  but  apparently  unmoved,  declining  to  bow 
his  thanks  to  the  fickle  crowd  that  had  only  the  day 
before  been  ready  to  join  in  his  crucifixion. 

At  length  the  tumult  died  down,  and  the  members 
resumed  their  seats,  eager  to  hear  what  Parnell  would 
have  to  say  about  the  damnable  conspiracy  which  had 
been  hatched  for  his  destruction.  In  a  cold  even  tone, 
he  began  to  speak — and  the  house  of  commons  was 
immeasurably  amazed  to  find  him  calmly  discussing 
the  question  before  the  house  and  without  a  single  ref- 
erence to  the  celebrated  trial.  At  this  time  Parnell 
stood  upon  the  very  pinnacle  of  his  power  and  popu- 
larity. He  was  the  veritable  uncrowned  king  of  Ire- 
land. His  battle  was  being  fought  in  England  by  the 
great  liberal  party,  and  Gladstone  was  still  thunder- 
ing his  demand  for  the  concession  of  Irish  rights.  An 
election  was  approaching,  and  with  every  prospect  of 
a  successful  issue.  Home  Rule  loomed  large  on  the 
horizon.  The  battle  was  almost  over,  the  fight  was 
almost  won. 

And  then  came  the  Nemesis — trailing  on  behind. 
The  greatest  moment  in  Parnell's  career  before  had 
been  the  hour  of  his  liberation  from  prison  with  an 
Irish  concession  in  his  hand.  At  that  very  hour  the 
murderers  struck  down  Lord  Cavendish  in  Phoenix 
Park.  And  now  after  his  last  and  greatest  triumph — 
the  Nemesis  struck  again,  and  the  world  was  shocked 
and  stunned  on  learning  that  Captain  O'Shea  had  sued 
for  divorce  and  had  named  as  co-respondent  Charles 
Stewart  Parnell. 

The  Irish  leader  offered  no  defense,  and  the  divorce 
was  granted. 

The  political  effect  was  tremendous.     The  heart- 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      497 

breaking  possibilities  instantly  appealed  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Irish  party,  and,  three  days  after  the  di- 
vorce, a  meeting  of  the  National  League  was  held  in 
Dublin,  and,  with  John  Redmond  in  the  chair,  a  resolu- 
tion was  passed  unanimously  to  sustain  Parnell.  In 
England  the  effect  was  quite  different.  One  English 
politician,  Henry  Labouchere,  took  the  position  that  it 
was  none  of  England's  business  whom  the  Irish  people 
selected  for  their  leader — but  Labouchere  was  more 
French  than  English  in  temperament.  The  English 
moralists  began  to  move.  The  relations  between  the 
Home-Rule  movement  and  the  liberal  party  were  now 
so  intimate  that  the  liberal  leaders,  whether  sympa- 
thizing with  the  hue  and  cry  or  not,  felt  obliged  to 
take  cognizance  of  it.  The  inevitable  decision  was 
reached  that  they  could  not  afford  to  carry  the  load. 
Gladstone,  Morley  and  William  T.  Stead,  took  the  po- 
sition that  the  continued  relations  between  the  liberals 
and  the  Irish  depended  upon  the  deposition  of  Parnell 
from  the  leadership  of  the  Irish  party.  It  was  Glad- 
stone's contention  to  Justin  McCarthy  that  no  other 
event  could  save  from  defeat  the  liberal  party,  to 
whom  the  Irish  people  were  looking  for  Home  Rule. 
Meanwhile  the  Irish  members  met  in  London  and 
reelected  their  chosen  champion  to  the  position  of 
leader.  Then  followed  the  publication  of  Gladstone's 
letter  demanding  the  retirement  of  Parnell.  This  im- 
pelled many  of  the  Irish  members  to  the  conclusion 
that  perhaps  it  would  be  best  for  their  leader  to  retire 
at  least  temporarily  from  public  life.  The  wonderful 
battle  that  was  waged  among  the  Irish  members  at 
their  prolonged  conferences  has  probably  never  been 
equaled  in  its  dramatic  features.     Parnell  sat  tight. 


498  THE   IRISH   ORATORS 

Instead  of  retiring  under  fires  he  proposed  the  terms 
of  his  withdrawal — that  Gladstone  would  pledge  him- 
self in  writing  in  a  letter  to  McCarthy  to  give  the 
Irish  parliament,  which  seemed  assured,  control  of  the 
police  and  the  land.  The  refusal  of  Gladstone  to  dis- 
cuss terms  let  loose  the  dogs  of  war.  The  Irish  party- 
was  hopelessly  split.  With  an  imposing  eloquence, 
John  Redmond  fought  the  battle  for  Parnell.  "When 
we  are  asked,"  he  said,  "to  sell  our  leader  to  preserve 
the  English  alliance,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  bound 
to  inquire  what  we  are  getting  for  the  price  we  are 
paying."  But  the  question  was  non-debatable.  The 
differences  were  irreconcilable.  And  when  at  length 
the  impossibility  of  an  agreement  was  disclosed  Justin 
McCarthy  led  forty- four  seceders  from  the  room,  leav- 
ing Parnell  in  possession  with  the  remaining  twenty- 
six.  And  thus,  just  on  the  edge  of  the  Promised 
Land,  the  people  of  Ireland  once  more  turned  their 
faces  to  the  wilderness. 


IX 


Parnell  now  determined  to  fight.  He  looked  upon 
the  English  leaders  as  hypocrites,  as  he  always  had. 
He  despised  the  public  opinion  of  England,  as  he  al- 
ways had.  And  now  with  his  leadership  disputed  he 
turned  again  to  Ireland  to  wage  his  battle  for  a  vindi- 
cation. The  activities  of  Parnell  during  the  next  few 
months  constitute  a  story  of  ineffable  pathos.  "I  do 
not  pretend,"  he  said  at  Dublin,  "that  I  have  not  mo- 
ments of  trial  and  temptation,  but  I  do  claim  that  never 
in  thought  or  deed  have  I  been  false  to  the  trust  that 
Irishmen  have  confided  to  me."    No  oQe  could  deny 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      499 

it.  If  he  had  transgressed  the  moral  law,  he  had  been 
true  to  his  people.  His  fight,  however,  was  a  losing 
fight,  albeit  he  fought  with  the  desperation  of  despair. 
Defeated  in  the  bitter  election  contests  at  North  Kil- 
kenny, Sligo  and  Carlow,  he  persevered  and  pretended 
to  see  light  where  others  saw  but  darkness. 

Every  Saturday  he  left  London  for  Ireland  where 
he  crowded  in  as  many  speeches  as  possible  until  Mon- 
day night  when  he  resumed  his  place  in  the  house  of 
commons.  Burning  the  candle  at  both  ends,  his  slen- 
der form  grew  slighter,  his  pallor  deepened.  We  have 
a  touching  picture  of  him  at  this  time  trying  to  amuse 
himself  one  night  in  Dublin.  After  the  theater  he  re- 
membered a  little  oyster  house  in  Grafton  Street  to 
which  he  had  gone  years  before  and  here,  in  the  com- 
pany of  a  friend,  he  remained  until  the  early  hours  of 
the  morning  in  reminiscent  mood.  Three  weeks  be- 
fore the  end,  when  Justin  McCarthy  remonstrated 
with  him  on  account  of  his  ceaseless  activity,  he  re- 
plied, with  a  sad  smile,  that  in  his  present  state  of 
mind  he  thought  the  constant  traveling  and  speaking 
did  him  good. 

In  the  early  autumn  of  1891  the  health  of  Parnell 
was  in  a  precarious  state,  but  he  persisted  in  his  fight. 
In  late  September,  his  health  hopelessly  shattered,  he 
defied  the  orders  of  his  physician  to  speak  at  Creggs, 
and,  notwithstanding  great  bodily  pain,  he  made  there 
his  final  appeal  to  Ireland.  He  left  the  platform  with 
the  imprint  of  death  upon  his  face,  and  retired  to  his 
house  at  Brighton  where  he  was  forced  to  take  to  his 
bed.  The  general  public  knew  little  about  his  physical 
condition  and  the  fight  against  him  went  on  with  un- 
diminished fury  until  October  seventh  when  the  news 


500  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

flashed  over  the  wires  that  Charles  Stewart  Parnell 
was  dead.  The  announcement  created  a  sensation  in 
London.  There  was  a  momentary  hush.  The  bitter 
tongues  of  his  enemies  were  stilled.  The  greatest 
friend  of  Ireland  was  dead — and  Ireland  helped  to 
kill  him. 

On  Sunday  morning,  in  October,  the  steamer  Ire- 
land pulled  in  at  Kingston,  and  one  forenoon  the  body 
of  the  dead  chieftain  lay  in  state  in  the  City  Hall  in 
Dublin,  and  a  vast  concourse  of  people  followed  the 
hearse  to  Grasnevin  cemetery  where,  not  far  from  the 
grave  of  O'Connell,  Parnell  was  buried. 

The  years  that  have  gone  since  Parnell  died  within 
sound  of  the  sea  have  softened  the  animosities  of  the 
year  of  his  death,  and  the  world  has  almost  forgotten, 
or,  if  it  remembers,  it  is  with  pity  rather  than  with 
hate,  the  story  of  the  scandal;  but  the  years  have 
served  to  accentuate  the  most  notable  pictures  of  his 
marvelous  career — the  Parnell  standing  almost  alone 
in  the  house  of  commons,  torn  by  turmoil,  and  forcing 
a  consideration  of  Irish  rights; — the  Parnell  playing 
chess  at  Kilmainham,  and  from  the  vantage  point  of 
a  prison  coaxing  an  important  Irish  concession  from 
the  prime  minister  of  the  empire; — the  Parnell  con- 
solidating Ireland  and  haughtily  giving  terms  to  the 
supplicating  leaders  of  English  parties — this  Parnell, 
the  real  Parnell,  will  never  die.  The  path  he  blazed  is 
the  path  his  people  have  trod,  and  ultimately  it  will  be 
the  path  to  victory. 

His  was  a  complex  personality.  The  emotional  side 
of  his  nature,  so  carefully  concealed  from  the  public 
which  thought  him  cold  and  calculating,  has  been 
shown  us  in  the  reminiscences  of  his  sister,  Mrs.  Dick- 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELU      501 

inson,  his  brother  John  Parnell,  and  Mrs.  O'Shea.  His 
amazing  superstitions,  such  as  his  fear  of  the  color 
green,  his  horror  of  the  number  thirteen,  his  tendency 
to  attach  a  tragic  significance  to  three  lighted  candles, 
to  the  unexplainable  falling  of  any  object,  or  the 
breaking  of  glass,  are  inexplicable.  He  felt  a  tender 
solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  his  tenants.  He  loved 
dogs  and  horses  and  the  beauties  of  nature.  His 
haughtiness,  so  often  referred  to  in  reproach,  was  but 
the  manifestation  of  his  shyness  of  strangers.  Be- 
neath the  frozen  crust  w^as  a  fiery  crater.  That  this 
man  who  had  read  little,  who  knew  scarcely  any  his- 
tory, who  was  utterly  lacking  in  the  poetic  qualities  of 
the  Celt,  and  who  was  as  simple  as  the  most  humble 
peasant  in  his  superstitions  should  have  developed  into 
the  greatest  leader,  save  one  perhaps,  of  the  Irish  race 
is  one  of  the  phenomena  of  history.  That  he  remained 
an.  enigma  to  the  English  leaders  may  be  assumed 
from  the  statement  given  out  by  Gladstone  after  Par- 
nell had  passed  away  at  Brighton : 

"Parnell  was  the  most  remarkable  man  I  ever  met. 
I  do  not  say  he  was  the  ablest  man ;  I  say  the  most  re- 
markable man.  He  was  an  intellectual  phenomenon.  He 
was  unlike  any  one  I  had  ever  met.  He  did  things 
and  said  things  unlike  other  men.  His  ascendency 
over  his  party  was  remarkable.  There  has  never  been 
anything  like  it  in  my  experience  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons." 


X 


In  the  extracts  from  Parnell's  speeches  which  have 
been  used  it  will  be  noted  that  he  was  not  a  great 


502  JHE   IRISH    ORATORS 

orator  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term.  The 
fervor  of  expression,  the  rhetorical  grace  and  fire,  the 
epigrammatic  brilliance,  the  emotional  appeal  with 
which  one  associates  Irish  oratory  were  almost  wholly 
lacking.  There  was  nothing  of  rhetorical  eloquence  in 
his  utterances.  Nor  was  there  the  slightest  dramatic 
effect  in  his  manner  of  speaking.  Of  gestures  there 
was  comparatively  none.  His  voice  was  adequate,  but 
not  musical  and  there  was  no  attempt  at  modulation. 
And  yet  he  made  profound  impressions  on  immense 
audiences  and  commanded  the  most  perfect  attention 
ordinarily  when  he  spoke  in  the  house  of  commons. 
The  secret  of  his  success  on  the  platform  and  in  the 
house  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  hearer  knew  that  behind 
every  word  was  an  idea,  and  behind  every  idea  was  a 
man.  When  Richard  Lalor  Sheil  delivered  one  of  his 
masterful  rhetorical  masterpieces,  full  of  fight,  the 
people  were  delighted  with  the  rolling  thunder  of  the 
sound,  and  impressed  with  the  artistry  of  the  actor, 
but  Sheil  could  not  have  framed  a  sentence  sufficiently 
fervent  to  have  created  half  the  impression  that  Parnell 
could  have  created  by  the  cold  utterance  of  the  simple 
words,  "Keep  a  firm  grip  upon  your  homesteads." 

The  eloquence  of  Parnell  then  was  quite  similar  to 
that  of  Napoleon.  He  was  not  an  orator,  as  we  popu- 
larly understand  oratory,  and  yet  his  short  speeches  to 
his  soldiers  on  the  verge  of  battle  were  infinitely  more 
effective  than  the  most  stirring  eloquence  of  Pitt. 
While  Parnell  was  not  an  actor  he  held  audiences  by 
the  spell  of  his  personality.  There  was  something  of 
fascinating  mystery  about  him  that  appealed  to  people. 
He  possessed  one  advantage  on  the  platform — he  was 
a  handsome  man  of  imposing  personal  appearance. 


CHARLES    STEWART    PARNELL      503 

Gladstone  throws  a  sidelight  on  his  power  over  the  peo- 
ple when  he  says:  "He  did  things  and  he  said  things 
unlike  other  men."  But  John  Redmond,  in  his  lecture 
on  The  House  of  Commons,  gives  us  the  best  idea  of 
Parnell,  the  orator:  "He  seldom  spoke,  once  he  had 
risen  to  a  commanding  position  in  parliament.  When 
he  did  speak  the  silence  that  crept  over  the 

HOUSE   WAS  ABSOLUTELY   PAINFUL  IN   ITS   INTENSITY. 

He  had  something  of  that  quality  which  Coleridge 
ascribed  to  the  Ancient  Mariner.  'He  held  them  by 
his  glittering  eye,  they  could  not  choose  but  hear.*  He 
was  no  orator  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term. 
Indeed  he  commenced  his  parliamentary  career  as  a 
halting  speaker,  with  almost  an  impediment  in  his 
speech.  As  time  went  on  it  is  true  he  spoke  with  ease 
and  fluency,  but  the  great  quality  of  his  speaking  was 
its  clearness,  its  directness  and  terseness.  'No  man,' 
said  Gladstone  of  him,  'is  more  successful  in  doing 
that  which  it  is  commonly  supposed  all  speakers  do, 
but  which,  in  my  opinion,  few  do,  namely,  in  saying 
what  he  means.'  "  Indeed  Parnell  w^as  incapable  of 
speaking  at  all  unless  he  had  something  definite  to 
say  and  knew  whereof  he  spoke. 

A  very  fine  tribute  is  paid  his  speech  in  closing  the 
Home-Rule  debate  of  1886  by  John  IMorley  in  his  bi- 
ography of  Gladstone  w^hen  he  writes:  "The  Irish 
leader  made  one  of  the  most  masterful  speeches  that 
ever  fell  from  him.  Whether  agreeing  with  or  dif- 
fering from  the  policy,  every  unprejudiced  listener  felt 
that  this  was  not  the  mere  dialectic  of  a  party  debater, 
dealing  smartly  with  abstract  or  verbal  or  artificial 
arguments,  but  the  utterance  of  a  statesman  with  his 
eye  firmly  fixed  upon  the  actual  circumstances  of  the 


504  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

nation  for  whose  government  this  bill  would  make  him 
responsible.  As  he  deals  with  Ulster,  with  finance, 
with  the  supremacy  of  parliament,  with  the  loyal  mi- 
nority, with  the  settlement  of  education  in  an  Irish 
legislature — soberly,  steadily,  deliberately,  with  that 
full,  familiar,  deep  insight  into  the  facts  of  a  country, 
which  is  only  possible  to  a  man  who  belongs  to  it  and 
has  passed  his  life  in  it,  the  effect  of  Mr.  Parnell's 
speech  was  to  make  even  able  disputants  on  either  side 
look  little  better  than  amateurs." 

Considering  the  remarkable  men  who  participated 
in  this  debate — Gladstone,  Salisbury,  Morley,  Church- 
ill and  Chamberlain — this  was  a  fine  compliment  in- 
deed, especially  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most  schol- 
arly men  in  English  public  life. 

While  entertaining  a  contempt  for  the  mere  rhet- 
orician it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he  was  wholly 
indifferent  to  the  niceties  of  expression.  He  never 
attempted  to  say  things  beautifully  or  impressively, 
but  he  always  strove  desperately  to  say  things  pre- 
cisely as  he  would  have  them  said.  In  his  Liverpool 
speech  on  his  return  from  his  American  tour  he  seemed 
struggling  for  a  word.  His  friends  on  the  platform 
whispered  the  word  they  thought  he  wanted  only  to 
have  their  suggestions  ignored  and  the  speaker  use 
another  and  more  precise  and  effective  word.  It  is 
probable  that  he  gave  more  attention  to  the  preparation 
of  the  speeches  he  delivered  on  his  American  tour  than 
to  any  others  of  his  career.  He  entered  upon  the  task 
of  stating  the  case  of  Ireland  to  America  with  fear 
and  trembling.  It  was  not  a  congenial  duty.  He  hated 
crowds.  An  audience  never  failed  to  make  him  nerv- 
ous.   However,  he  had  enough  strength  of  character 


CHARLES    STEWART   PARNELU      505 

to  overcome  his  distaste,  and  while  his  American 
speeches  were  not  the  ponderous,  powerful,  polished 
and  stirring  appeals  that  McCarthy,  Redmond  and 
Healy  have  made  to  American  audiences,  they  made 
a  deep  indelible  impression  everywhere  and  satisfied 
the  Irish- Americans  that  in  the  speaker  Ireland  had 
a  champion  who  meant  business.  During  the  tour  he 
developed  into  an  effective  rough  and  ready  cam- 
paigner such  as  Americans  like.  He  had  a  way  of 
introducing  local  color  into  his  speeches  and  of  refer- 
ring to  incidents  and  organizations  at  the  meeting  that 
pleased  the  crowds.  Of  all  his  American  speeches  per- 
haps the  most  complete  exposition  of  the  Irish  cause 
and  the  one  most  conscientiously  prepared  was  that 
which  was  delivered  to  the  American  house  of  repre- 
sentatives. The  occasion  must  have  inspired  even  Par- 
nell. 

It  is  probable  that  his  speeches  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons caused  him  less  mental  anguish  and  nervous  ef- 
fort than  those  spoken  to  the  Irish-Americans  and  to 
the  Irish  audiences.  His  brother  quotes  him  as  saying 
that  he  never  cared  particularly  what  the  English 
thought  of  his  speeches,  but  in  addressing  an  audience 
on  Irish  soil  he  had  an  intense  longing  for  sympathy 
and  approval.  Perhaps  he  himself  expressed  his  atti- 
tude when,  in  response  to  the  question:  "Don't  you 
feel  a  little  excited  and  proud  when  they  all  cheer  you 
and  really  you  ?"  he  responded  with  one  of  his  illumina- 
tive smiles :  "Yes,  when  it  is  really  me,  when  I  am  in 
the  midst  of  a  peasant  crowd  in  Ireland."* 


*The  question  was  asked  by  Mrs.  O'Shea,  afterward  Mrs. 
Pamell,  and  is  recorded  in  her  book  on  the  Irish  leader,  recently 
published. 


506  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

Perhaps,  after  all,  the  secret  of  Parnell's  hold  on 
the  confidence  and  affection  of  the  Irish  people  is  that 
they  could  see  through  the  cold  exterior  of  the  man 
and  see  the  beating  of  his  heart. 


THE  LAST  QUARTER  OF  A  CENTURA 
1891-1912 

SINCE  THE  PASSING  OF  PARNELH 

THE  various  movements,  policies  and  activities  of 
the  Irish  patriots  since  the  death  of  Parnell  will 
require  the  perspective  of  years  to  determine  with  any 
degree  of  certitude  their  place  in  history.  After  the 
historic  meeting  in  committee  room  fifteen  the  parlia- 
mentary party  was  torn  by  disheartening  dissensions 
for  almost  a  decade,  with  Justin  McCarthy,  the  bril- 
liant historian,  and  later  John  Dillon,  leading  the  larger 
division,  with  John  E.  Redmond  in  command  of  the 
remnants  of  the  Parnell  following,  and  Tim  Healy 
playing  a  minor  role.  This  decade  witnessed  the 
treachery  of  the  English  liberals  under  the  direction 
of  Lord  Rosebery,  and  the  reduction  of  the  Irish  to 
such  impotency  that  an  attempt  was  actually  made  to 
reduce  the  Irish  representation.  The  latter  attempt 
literally  drove  the  factional  leaders  to  a  unification  of 
their  forces  under  the  leadership  of  Redmond,  whose 
loyalty  to  the  memory  of  Parnell  here  stood  him  in 
good  stead.  The  six  following  years  brought  a  per- 
ceptible brightening  in  the  prospects  for  Home  Rule, 
and  the  passage  of  the  Land  Purchase  Act  of  1903, 
the  most  sweeping  land  reform  in  the  history  of  the 

507 


508  THE   IRISH    ORATORS 

island,  wrought  a  revolution  in  the  condition  of  the 
tenants. 

With  the  triumph  of  the  liberals  under  Sir  Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman,  and  later  under  Henry  Asquith, 
a  close  alliance  was  formed  between  the  government 
and  the  Irish  party,  and  here  we  enter  controversial 
ground.  The  bitter  battling  between  the  liberals  and 
the  conservatives  or  unionists  over  the  budget  of 
Lloyd-George,  and  the  destruction  of  the  veto  power 
of  the  house  of  lords,  resulted  in  general  elections  in 
which  the  Irish  party  stood  steadfastly  by  the  liberals 
Vv'ith  the  distinct  understanding  that  the  Home-Rule 
bill  would  be  ultimately  taken  up  and  pushed  to  its 
passage.  The  events  that  have  transpired  since  the 
original  introduction  of  the  Home-Rule  bill  have  re- 
sulted in  much  bitterness  and  the  real  purport  of  these 
events  must  await  the  illumination  of  time.  The  amaz- 
ing complacency  with  which  the  government  contem- 
plated the  arming  of  the  rebels  of  Ulster,  against  the 
prospective  operation  of  the  bill,  under  the  leadership 
of  Sir  Edwin  Carson,  who  was  permitted  to  pass 
without  criticism  from  the  camp  of  armed  rebels  to 
the  deliberations  of  the  house  of  commons,  will  prob- 
ably be  hard  to  explain.  The  infamous  massacre  of 
the  nationalists  by  the  soldiery  in  the  streets  of  Dub- 
lin because  of  actions  that  had  been  countenanced  in 
Belfast  will  be  more  difficult  of  explanation.  Out  of 
the  growing  fear  of  treachery  has  developed  once 
again  the  militant  spirit,  and  under  the  leadership  of 
Sir  Roger  Casement  there  has  come  an  amazing  re- 
vival of  the  Volunteer  movement,  similar  to  that  in 
the  days  of  Flood,  and  with  more  than  one  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  men  enrolled.    The  situation  had 


THE  LAST  QUARTER  OF  A  CENTURY      509 

reached  an  acute  stage  when  the  world  war,  now  in 
progress,  dropped  the  curtain  on  the  scene.  The  rest 
is  with  to-morrow. 

Such  is  the  inspiring  story  of  the  struggles  of  the 
Irish  people  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  to 
attain  those  rights  and  liberties  of  which  they  have 
been  deprived.  It  has  been  a  story  of  violated  treaties, 
of  broken  promises,  of  continuous  treachery,  of  gib- 
bets, dungeons,  evictions,  famines  and  massacres,  but 
the  gloom  of  the  darkest  period  has  been  illuminated 
by  the  genius,  the  eloquence,  the  heroism  of  the  race. 
The  centuries,  blood-stained  and  tear-stained,  have 
made  it  plain  that  the  Irish  will  not  be  slaves.  Time 
and  again  their  aspirations  have  been  crushed  by  the 
mailed  hand  of  might,  only  to  flower  again.  Never 
have  they  acquiesced  in  their  degradation.  And  never 
has  the  call  to  martyrdom  been  in  vain.  The  "dis- 
grace," born  of  the  scaffold  and  the  prison,  has  brought 
no  blush  to  the  cheek  of  the  patriot,  for  they  who  have 
been  stigmatized  by  the  courts  as  traitors  have  been 
glorified  by  the  Irish  people  as  martyrs  to  the  cause 
of  freedom.  Thus  the  Wexford  men  of  '98  are  not 
execrated  and  forgotten,  but  are  treasured  in  the  Irish 
heart.  Emmet  passed  from  the  scaffold  to  immortal- 
ity. The  Fenians  of  Manchester  are  martyrs  to  the 
race  they  tried  to  serve.  Meagher  and  Mitchell  are 
glorious  memories  in  every  Irish  cot  on  two  continents 
and  the  far-flung  islands  of  the  seas.  The  Irish  race, 
looking  back  over  the  century  and  a  half  that  we  have 
traced,  has  no  apology  to  make  to  history — and  the 
fight  goes  on ! 

No  better,  perhaps,  can  this  story  of  Irish  leaders 
and  movements  be  brought  to  a  close  than  in  the  words 


510  THE    IRISH    ORATORS 

of  Grattan,  so  beautifully  expressive  of  the  spirit  of 
every  loyal  son  of  Erin: 

"I  never  will  be  satisfied  as  long  as  the  meanest  cot- 
tager in  Ireland  has  a  link  of  the  British  chain  clanking 
to  his  rags;  he  may  be  naked,  he  shall  not  be  in  irons; 
and  I  do  see  the  time  at  hand,  the  spirit  has  gone  forth, 
the  declaration  is  planted;  and  though  great  men  shall 
apostatize,  yet  the  cause  will  live;  and  though  the  pub- 
lic speaker  shall  die,  yet  the  immortal  fire  shall  outlive 
the  humble  organ  that  conveyed  it,  and  the  spirit  of  lib- 
erty, like  the  words  of  the  holy  man,  shall  not  perish 
with  the  prophet,  but  survive  him." 


THE   END 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Henry  Flood — Life  of  Henry  Flood,  by  Warden  Flood. 
Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  by  Lecky.  Leaders 
of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland,  by  Lecky.  End  of  the 
Irish  Parliament,  by  J.  R.  Fisher.  Distinguished  Irish- 
men^  by  Willis.  Grattan's  Parliament,  by  McDonnell 
Bodkin.  Dublin  Review,  August,  1842.  North  Amer- 
ican Reviezv,  January,  1873. 

Henry  Grattan — Life  of  G rattan,  by  his  son.  Speeches 
of  Grattan.  End  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  by  J.  R. 
Fisher.  Grattan* s  Parliament,  by  McDonnell  Bodkin. 
Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland,  by  Lecky.  His- 
tory of  Ireland,  by  Finnerty.  United  Irishmen,  by 
Madden.  Life  of  Pitt,  by  Rosebery.  Edinburg  Re- 
view, February,  1823. 

John  Philpot  Curran — Life  of  Curran,  by  his  son. 
Recollections  of  Curran,  by  Phillips.  Recollections 
of  Curran,  by  O'Regan.  Currants  Speeches.  United 
Irishmen,  by  Madden.  Irish  State  Trials.  Edinburg 
Reviezv,  1808.  North  American  Review,  1820.  Hol- 
land House  Circle.    Living  Age,  1886. 

Robert  Emmet — Memoirs  of  the  Emmet  Family,  by 
Doctor  Emmet.  Life  of  Emmet,  by  Madden.  Life 
of  Emmet,  by  O'Donoghue.  Life  of  Emmet,  by  Da- 
vis. Life  of  Emmet,  by  Louise  Guiney.  Trial  of 
Emmet. 

513  1 


514  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Lord  Plunkett — Life  of  Plunkett,  by  David  Plunkett. 
Life  and  Speeches  of  Plunkett,  by  J.  C.  Hoey.  End 
of  the  Irish  Parliament,  by  Fisher.  Grattan's  Parlia- 
ment, by  Bodkin.  Life  of  Pitt,  by  Rosebery.  Edin- 
burg  Review,  July,  1867.  Dublin  University  Maga- 
zine, March,  1840.    Dublin  Review,  July,  1867. 

Daniel  O'Connell — Life  of  O'Connell,  by  his  son.  Life 
of  O'Connell,  by  Fagan.  Life  of  O'Connell,  by  Cu- 
sack.  Early  Life  and  Journal  of  O'Connell^  by  Hous- 
ton. Collected  Speeches  of  O'Connell.  Recollections 
of  O'Connell,  by  O'Neil  Daunt.  Oration  on  O'Con- 
nell, by  Wendell  Phillips.  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion 
in  Ireland,  by  Lecky.  Life  of  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
by  Moneypenny.  History  of  Ireland,  by  Mitchell. 
"O'Connell  as  an  Orator,'*  Temple  Bar,  October, 
1864.  "O'Connelliana,"  Temple  Bar,  October,  1875. 
"O'Connell  at  Darrynane,"  by  Howitt,  Living  Age, 
1846.  "O'Connell  as  Landlord,*'  Living  Age,  Febru- 
ary, 1846.  Life  of  Richard  Lalor  Shell,  by  M'CuUagh. 
Speeches  of  Richard  Lalor  Shell.  Emancipation 
Speeches  of  Charles  Phillips. 

Thomas  Francis  Meagher — Life  of  Meagher,  by 
Lyons.  Life  of  Meagher,  by  Cavanaugh.  Speeches 
of  Thomas  Francis  Meagher.  Last  Days  in  Virginia 
with  the  Irish  Brigade,  by  Meagher.  History  of  Ire- 
land, by  Mitchell.  Young  Ireland,  by  Sir  C.  G.  Duffy. 
Mitchell's  Jail  Journal.  "Sketches  by  Meagher** 
Harper's  Monthly,  1858,  1867. 

Isaac  Butt — History  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party, 
by  O'Donnell.  Recollections  of  Fenians  and  Fenian- 
ism,  by  O'Leary.  Speeches  by  Butt  in  the  Fenian 
Trials.    State  Trials  in  Ireland.    Recollections  of  an 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  515 

Irish  Journalist,  by  Pigott.  Recollections,  by  O'Brien. 
Young  Ireland,  by  Duffy.  The  Parnell  Movement,  by 
T.  P.  O'Connor.  Fall  of  Feudalism  in  Ireland,  by 
Davitt.  Appeal  for  Amnesty,  by  Butt.  Irish  People 
and  the  Irish  Land,  by  Butt.  A  Plea  for  the  Celtic 
Race,  by  Butt.  Dublin  University  Review,  June,  1879. 
Freeman's  Journal  (Dublin).  Irish  Rebels,  by  O'Don- 
ovan  Rossa. 

Charles  Stewart  Parnell  —  Life  of  Parnell,  by 
O'Brien.  The  Parnell  Family,  by  Mrs.  Dickinson. 
Life  of  Parnell,  by  John  Parnell.  The  Parnell  Move- 
ment, by  T.  P.  O'Connor.  History  of  the  Irish  Par- 
liamentary Party ^  by  O'Donnell.  Life  of  Parnell,  by 
T.  Sherlock.  The  Great  Struggle,  by  T.  P.  O'Connor. 
Life  of  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  by  Rosebery.  Life 
of  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  by  Churchill.  Life  of 
Gladstone,  by  Morley.  Histories  and  Reminiscences, 
by  McCarthy.  Fall  of  Feudalism  in  Ireland,  by  Da- 
vitt. Lecture  on  the  House  of  Commons,  by  Red- 
mond. 


INDEX 


INDEX 

Anglesea,  Marquis  of,  281,  282,  285,  288. 
Anti-Union  paper,  180,  181. 
Asquith,  Henry,  508. 

'Bellew,  Councillor,  debate  with  O'Connell,  255,  256. 

Bibliography,  513. 

Biggar,  Joseph,  431,  432. 

Brougham,  Lord,  196,  198,  279,  289. 

Burgh,  Hussey,  54,  56,  60,  68,  133,  155. 

Burrowes,  Peter,  171,  176. 

Bushe,  Chas.  Kendall,  171,  176. 

Butt,  Isaac:  early  days  and  education,  375;  early  literary  work, 
376;  becomes  Queen's  Counsel,  Zll  \  his  ultra-conservatism, 
Zn ;  darling  of  the  Conservatives,  378 ;  debates  with 
O'Connell,  378,  3/9;  undergoes  process  of  Anglicization, 
379,  380;  defends  Meagher  and  O'Brien,  380;  Tory  career 
in  parliament,  380-382 ;  loses  parliamentary  seat,  384 ;  de- 
fends Fenianism  in  the  courts,  383-387;  his  speeches  in 
defense  of  Fenians,  388-397 ;  organizes  the  Amnesty  Asso- 
ciation, 398;  petitions  Gladstone,  398,  399;  organizes  mon- 
ster protest  meetings,  398,  399;  his  tribute  to  the  Fenians, 
400 ;  effect  of  Fenian  association  on  his  political  character, 
405-407;  organizes  Home-Rule  Movement,  509;  his  disad- 
vantages, 409-411;  his  idea  of  Home  Rule,  411-413;  his 
method  of  parliamentary  warfare,  414 ;  his  efforts  for  land 
reform,  415-417;  his  mild  type  of  obstruction,  417,  418; 
loses  confidence  of  Fenians,  418,  419;  displaced  as  leader, 
419;  his  oratory,  420-423. 

Campbell-Bannerman,  Henry,  508. 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  479,  480. 

Carson,  Sir  Edwin,  508. 

Casement,  Sir  Roger,  508. 

Castlereagh,  Lady,  201. 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  60,  98,  102,  106,  175.  176,  178,  180,  182,  184- 

188,  190,  191,  193,  194,  196,  200,  201,  249. 
Catholic  Emancipation,  109-112,  247-249,  272-274,  279-282,  286. 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,  470,  477,  482. 
Charlemont,  Lord,  50,  63,  67,  116,  173,  174,  240. 

519 


520  INDEX 

Churchill,  Lord  Randolph,  420,  476-478,  480,  482,  484,  486. 

Churchill,  Winston,  478. 

Clan-na-Gael,  445,  446. 

Clare,  Lord,  47,  60,  63,  78,  79,  82,  84,  87,  97,  98,  133,  191,  192,  211, 
317. 

Clontarf,  meeting  at,  310. 

Cornwallis,  Lord:  character  and  work,  175,  188;  his  Union  tour, 
202. 

Corry,  Isaac:  defense  of  Union,  105;  attacked  by  Grattan,  106; 
duel  with  Grattan,  107. 

Curran,  John  Philpot:  youth  and  studies,  128-130;  life  in  Lon- 
don, 131,  132 ;  parliamentary  career,  133-139 ;  advocate  of 
Ireland,  137;  defense  of  Rowan,  138-140;  defense  of  Jack- 
son, 141;  defense  of  Finnerty,  141-144;  defense  of  Finney, 
145 ;  defense  of  patriots  of  '98,  146-153,  Harvey  v.  Sirr, 
153;  defense  of  Justice  Johnson,  154;  as  wit  and  man,  155- 
159;  his  oratory,  159-167. 

Curran,  Sarah,  224-228,  236. 

Davis,  Thomas,  329. 

Davitt,  Michael.  413,  446-448,  450,  451,  461,  472,  473. 

Devlin,  Ann,  224,  226. 

Devoy,  John,  385,  422,  446,  447. 

Dillon,  John,  356,  357. 

Dillon,  John,  2rd,  505,  507. 

Dublin:   in  days  just  before  the  Union,  173;  in  famine  days,  348; 

just  after  the  Union,  192,  193. 
Duels :   Grattan  with  Corry,  107 ;  Curran  with  Clare,  133. 
Duigenan,  Doctor,  84. 

Emmet,  Robert:  early  childhood,  206;  at  Trinity,  207-212;  his 
eloquence  at  Trinity,  208;  his  expulsion,  211 ;  relations  with 
Tom  Moore,  212,  213;  life  in  France,  214-216;  audience 
with  Napoleon,  215;  tricked  to  his  death,  217-219;  the 
Burke  papers,  218 ;  preparations  for  rebellion,  220-222 ;  the 
dash  on  the  Castle,  222,  223 ;  relations  with  Sarah  Curran, 
224-228;  his  arrest,  226;  his  trial,  228-235;  his  execution, 
235,  236. 

Fenian  Brotherhood:  383-387;  motives  and  character,  388-397; 
Butt's  tribute  to,  400-404 ;  effect  on  Butt,  406,  407 ;  Butt 
solicits  their  support  for  one  constitutional  effort,  408; 
their  faith  in  Butt,  418,  419;  Parnell  attracts  their  notice, 
436;  cultivated  by  Parnell,  438;  open  bid  for  their  support, 
442 ;  Parnell  wins  Fenian  respect,  443 ;  Parnell  declines  to 
join  the  Brotherhood,  444,  445;  Fenians  and  the  land  re- 
form, 464. 

Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward,  152. 


INDEX  521 

Flood,  Henry :  youth  and  studies,  4-6 ;  enters  parliament,  6 ;  first 
attack  on  government,  7,  8 ;  creates  a  Patriot  party,  8 ;  mar- 
riage and  life  at  Farmsley,  9;  plans  opposition  to  the  Mar- 
quis of  Townsend,  10,  11;  supports  the  Limitation  bill,  11; 
opposes  Augmentation  bill,  12;  his  connection  with  the 
Undertakers,  12,  13 ;  leads  the  fight  against  altering  Money 
bills  in  England,  14,  15;  makes  satirical  attack  on  Town- 
send,  "16 ;  speech  against  Townsend,  17 ;  drives  Townsend 
from  Ireland,  18,  19 ;  relations  with  Lord  Harcourt,  20-24 ; 
returns  to  Patriot  party  on  Free  Trade  issue,  26;  his  de- 
fense of  his  course,  27,  28;  his  fight  for  Simple  Repeal, 
29-34;  quarrel  with  Grattan,  34;  his  popularity  with  the 
Volunteers,  35,  36;  his  fight  for  parliamentary  reform, 
37-41 ;  his  oratory,  43-45. 

Ford,  Patrick,  459,  465. 

Free  Trade,  26,  51,  52. 

Gladstone,  398,  420,  434,  456,  460-467,  471-474,  476-478,  483,  486- 
490,  493-496,  498,  501. 

Grattan,  Henry;  early  life,  45-51 ;  fight  for  free  trade,  51-56;  for 
the  independence  of  parliament,  57-71 ;  against  Pitt's  com- 
mercial propositions,  72-75;  his  fight  against  corruption 
through  pensions,  75-77;  fight  against  tithe  evils,  77-80; 
attitude  on  the  Regency,  81-83;  fight  for  Catholic  rights, 
83-86;  the  Fitzwilliam  incident,  86-88;  fight  against  cor- 
ruption of  the  government,  88-96;  against  ruling  Ireland 
by  martial  law,  96-98 ;  his  reasons  for  retiring  from  parlia- 
ment, 98-100;  his  nervous  breakdown,  100;  his  return  to 
parliament  and  fight  against  the  Union,  101-108;  duel 
with  Corry,  107;  effect  of  Union  upon  him,  108;  his  work 
for  Catholic  emancipation,  109-112;  his  dramatic  journey 
to  London,  111;  his  character,  112-116;  his  oratory,  116- 
126. 

Grattan,  Mrs.  Henry,  100-103. 

Grenville,  Lord,  194. 

Haltigan,  John,  386,  387,  390. 

Harcourt,  Lord :   his  character,  20 ;  his  policy,  20-26. 

Healy,  Tim,  505,  507. 

Home  Rule:  the  Home-Rule  Movement  organized,  409;  disad- 
vantages of  early  struggle,  409-411 ;  Butt's  idea  of,  411^13 ; 
Butt's  plan  of  battle,  414 ;  Parnell  assumes  leadership,  419 ; 
absorption  of  Land  League,  450;  appeal  to  America  for, 
452-455,  459 ;  Parnell  in  elections  of  '85  makes  it  the  issue, 
480-484;  Gladstone  won  over  to,  486;  preparation  of  bill 
of  '86,  485,  486;  Gladstone's  troubles  with  liberals  over, 
487;  Parnell's  speech  on,  488;  and  the  elections  of  1892, 
497;  pledge  for  repudiated  by  Rosebery,  507;  alliance  with 
liberals  on,  508;  the  Volunteers'  movement,  508. 


522  INDEX 

Informers,  146-153. 
"Irish  People,"  385,  386,  389,  428. 

Irish  Volunteers,  30,  31,  33,  35-40,  53-55,  57,  63,  64,  68,  71,  133,  139, 
151,  172,  508. 

Keogh,  John,  83,  247-249,  258. 
Kickman,  Chas.  Joseph,  385. 
Kilwarden,  Lord,  152,  155,  223. 

Labouchere,  Henry,  494,  497. 

Land  League:  446-451;  Parnell's  American  tour  for,  451-456, 
458,  459;  Patrick  Ford's  cooperation,  459,  460;  becomes  a 
power  in  Ireland,  460 ;  arrest  of  Parnell  and  effect  on,  461 ; 
forces  concessions  from  Gladstone,  463 ;  attitude  toward 
Land  Act  of  '81,  465;  Parnell's  advice  to  in  Wexford 
speech,  466-468;  "Captain  Moonlight,"  469;  effect  of  Par- 
nell's imprisonment  on,  470. 

Langrishe,  Hercules,  9. 

Luby,  Thomas  Clarke,  385,  386,  389,  390. 

McCarthy,  Justin,  470,  498,  499,  505,  507. 

McGee,  Thomas  D.,  356,  357. 

Malone,  Anthony,  7,  8. 

Manchester  Martyrs,  397,  428,  431,  435,  439. 

Meagher,  Thomas  Francis:  youth  and  education,  330-332;  joins 
Young  Ireland  and  assigned  as  speaker,  333 ;  his  first  Con- 
ciliation Hall  speech,  333,  334;  his  bitterness  against  the 
Whig  Alliance,  335;  his  Sword  speech,  336-338;  declines 
overtures  of  O'Connell,  339;  helps  organize  the  Irish  Con- 
federation, 339;  effect  of  the  famine  on  the  militant  move- 
ment, 340 ;  his  last  constitutional  speech,  341 ;  he  stands  for 
Waterford,  342,  343;  the  spirit  of  Young  Ireland,  344; 
joins  deputation  of  Young  Irelanders  to  Paris,  345;  ar- 
rested for  sedition,  346;  plans  for  the  uprising,  347,  348; 
campaigning  for  the  rebellion,  348,  349;  his  trial  for  sedi- 
tion, 350,  351 ;  opposes  the  rescue  of  Mitchell,  351 ;  is 
again  arrested  for  sedition,  252,  353;  again  appeals  to  the 
country,  354 ;  becomes  frankly  revolutionary,  356 ;  prepares 
to  strike,  356,  357;  reasons  for  failure  of  rebellion,  358;  is 
arrested,  tried,  condemned,  359,  360;  his  American  career, 
360-362 ;  his  oratory,  362-372. 

Mitchell,  John,  335,  336,  341,  346,  348,  350-353,  361,  404,  note. 

Morley,  John,  482,  485,  489,  490.  497. 

Mullaghmast,  meeting  at,  308-310. 

"Nation,  The,"  328,  332,  335,  341. 
Norbury,  Lord,  228,  230-235,  295. 

O'Brien,  Smith,  332,  333,  336,  346,  349,  350,  356,  358,  364,  373,  380. 


INDEX  523 

Obstruction :  Young  Ireland's  plan  for,  341 ;  Butt's  mild  form  of, 
417,  418;  Biggar's  exhibition  of,  431,  432;  Biggar's  idea  of, 
433 ;  Parnell's  obstructive  methods,  438-441 ;  on  the  South 
African  biH,  442,  443;  effect  of  on  Fenians,  443;  on  For- 
ster's  Coercion  bill,  462. 

O'Connell,  Daniel :  childhood,  239-241 ;  in  France,  241,  242 ;  early 
studies,  243,  244 ;  relations  with  United  Irishmen,  245,  246 ; 
repudiates  Pitt's  proffered  bribe  to  the  Catholics,  246,  247; 
assumes  leadership  of  the  Catholics,  247-249;  advocates 
constant  agitation,  250,  251;  fight  against  the  Securities, 
251-259;  encounters  opposition  of  Sheil,  256,  257;  his 
cultivation  of  Protestant  support,  259-262;  his  influence 
against  lawlessness,  263 ;  his  efforts  to  harmonize  support- 
ers, 264,  265 ;  his  faith  amid  discouragements,  266,  267 ;  his 
attitude  toward  rivals,  267-271 ;  he  organizes  the  Catholic 
Association,  272-274;  the  spirit  of  his  crusade,  275;  his 
"mob"  speeches,  276-279;  the  association  put  down,  279- 
280;  he  capitalizes  Duke  of  York's  speech,  280-282;  carries 
the  Waterford  election,  283 ;  is  elected  for  Clare,  283-285 ; 
the  emancipation  victory,  286;  his  reputation  on  entering 
parliament,  287,  288;  his  plans  for  the  repeal  of  the  Union, 
288 ;  his  fight  against  the  Coercion  bill,  289 ;  he  forms  alli- 
ance with  the  Whigs,^  290 ;  his  Irish  program,  293 ;  his  de- 
fense of  Ireland,  295 ;  he  abandons  hope  of  the  English 
alliance,  296 ;  he  sounds  the  tocsin  for  the  repeal  fight,  297 
organizes  the  Repeal  Association,  299;  the  monster  meet- 
ings, 299;  nature  of  his  repeal  speeches,  301;  attempts  to 
assassinate  him,  302,  303;  attacks  on  his  reputation,  303 
the  meeting  at  Tara,^  306 ;  at  Mullaghmast,  308 ;  the  Clon 
tarf  meeting  proscribed,  310;  is  arrested,  311;  his  trial 
311,  312;  his  prison  life,  312;  his  break  with  Young  Ireland. 
314;  his  last  appeal  for  the  famine  victims,  314,  315;  his 
last  journey,  315;  character  and  home  life,  316-320;  his 
oratory,  320-327. 

O'Donnell,  F.  H.,  411,  412,  414,  430,  433,  460. 

O'Gorman,  Richard,  356. 

O'Leary,  John,  385,  386,  390. 

Orangemen:  secret  societies  of,  264;  circulation  of  Duke  of 
York's  speech  by,  280. 

Orr,  William,  141-143. 

Parnell,  Charles  Stewart:  parentage,  425,  426;  inherited  hates, 
427;  at  English  schools,  427,  428;  raid  on  his  mother's 
home,  428;  effect  of  Manchester,  428,  429;  stands  for  Par- 
liament, 429 ;  effect  of  defeat,  430 ;  his  election,  430 ;  lack  of 
preparation  for  the  career,  431 ;  watching  the  game,  431- 
434;  his  delight  in  the  obstruction  of  Biggar,  431-433;  his 
defense  of  Manchester  martyrs,  435 ;  effect  on  the  Fenians, 
435,  436;  his  Liverpool  speech,  437;  his  plan  to  enlist  the 
Irish  in  England,  438 ;  he  begins  obstruction,  439-441 ;  wins 


524  INDEX 

Parnell,  Charles  Stewart — Continued, 

Fenian  support,  441,  442;  obstructing  South  African  bill, 
442,  443;  declines  to  join  the  Fenian  Brotherhood,  444, 
445 ;  wins  support  of  Clan-na-Gael,  445 ;  accepts  land  pro- 
gram of  Davitt,  446-451;  his  American  tour,  451^55; 
helps  liberals  in  election  and  holds  the  balance  of  power, 
456;  demands  a  more  liberal  land  law,  456;  follows  its 
defeat  by  arousing  Ireland,  458,  459;  makes  Land  League 
do  battle  against  England,  460;  is  arrested  for  sedition, 
461 ;  battles  against  the  Forster  Coercion  act,  462 ;  lashes 
Ireland  into  fury,  462;  forces  Gladstone  to  bring  in  land 
law,  463-465;  urges  Land  League  to  represent  tenants, 
465;  is  arrested,  468;  at  Kilmainham  prison,  469;  dictates 
to  Gladstone  from  prison,  470;  leaves  prison  the  victor, 
471;  effect  of  Phoenix  Park  murders,  471-474;  continues 
fighting  for  more  concessions,  474;  Forster*s  attack  on 
him,  474,  475;  he  plans  overthrow  of  Gladstone,  476-478; 
defeats  him  on  the  Budget,  478;  gets  concessions  from 
conservatives,  479;  dominates  election  of  1885,  480-484; 
Gladstone  seeks  alliance  on  promise  of  Home  Rule,  484; 
the  Home-Rule  fight  of  '86,  485^89;  puts  Gladstone 
to  fore  to  lead  fight  after  defeat  of  bill,  490-492 ;  is  libeled 
by  London  Times,  492^95 ;  his  triumph,  495 ;  the  O'Shea 
divorce,  496 ;  effect  on  the  party,  497,  498 ;  his  fight  in  Ire- 
land for  vindication,  498,  499 ;  his  death,  500 ;  his  character, 
500,  501 ;  his  oratory,  506. 

Parnell,  Fanny,  428. 

Parnell,  Sir  John,  181,  260,  427. 

Parsons,  Sir  Lawrence,  176,  180,  186. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  194,  196,  289,  290.  296,  305,  312,  335. 

Phillips,  Charles,  136,  155,  159,  212,  259. 

Phoenix  Park  murders,  472,  473. 

Pigott,  Richard,  493,  494. 

Pitt,  William,  72-75,  93,  94,  98,  176,  200,  217,  218,  235,  246. 

Plunkett,  Lord:  youth,  early  associations  and  studies,  170-173; 
purpose  in  entering  parliament,  174;  state  of  the  parlia- 
ment, 174-176;  he  defends  the  liberty  of  the  press,  177; 
his  first  attack  on  corruption  of  the  government,  178; 
leads  fight  against  the  Union,  179;  his  contributions  to  the 
Anti-Union,  180,  181 ;  his  plan  of  attack  on  the  conspiracy, 
181;  his  defiance  of  Castlereagh's  threats,  182-185;  his 
answer  to  the  Union  Duelling  Club,  186,  187 ;  he  forces  the 
fighting  on  the  Union,  188-190 ;  the  final  fight,  191 ;  effect 
of  the  Union  on  his  spirits,  192,  193;  his  speech  against 
Emmet,  193;  his  career  in  the  English  parliament,  194; 
his  closing  years,  195 ;  his  oratory,  196-203. 

Ponsonby,  George,  177. 

Press,  Irish:  defense  of  by  Plunkett,  177,  178;  by  Curran,  141- 
144 ;  by  Emmet,  209. 


INDEX  525 

Quarantotti,  Monsignor,  258. 

Redmond,  John,  497,  503,  505,  507. 

Regency,  The,  81-83. 

Rosebery,  Lord,  478,  507. 

Rossa,  O'Donovan,  385,  422,  446,  447. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  290,  291,  312,  335,  395. 

Sheares,  John  and  Henry,  146-149. 

Sheil,  Richard  Lalor,  256,  266-268,  270-272,  311,  322,  323,  335, 

365,  502. 
Simple  Repeal,  29-34. 
Stephens,  James,  384-387. 

Tara,  meeting  at,  306-308. 
Tithe  evils,  77-80. 
Tone,  Wolfe,  152,  171,  173. 

Townsend,  Marquis  of:  character  of,  10;  his  designs  on  Flood, 
11;  his  policy  in  Ireland,  12-19. 

Undertakers,  The,  7,  8,  13. 

Union,  The:  Pitt's  proffered  bribe  to  Catholics,  169;  O'Connell's 
answer  to,  246,  247 ;  parliament  ripe  for  in  corruption, 
174,  175 ;  Cornvvailis'  attitude  toward,  175 ;  the  work  of 
Castlereagh  and  Cook,  176;  how  revolution  of  '98  was  used 
to  further  it,  180 ;  pamphlets  for  and  against,  180,  181 ; 
first  debate  on,  181-186;  the  second  debate  on,  186;  the 
Union  Duelling  Club,  186;  third  debate  on,  187;  last  debate 
on,  188-191;  fate  of  its  champions,  191.  192;  effect  of  on 
Dublin,  192,  193;  Grattan  reenters  parliament  to  oppose, 
101-108;  effect  of  on  Grattan,  108;  on  Curran,  153; 
Meagher's  graphic  description  of,  371,  372. 

United  Irishmen,  96,  98,  138,  146-153,  178,  180,  189,  214,  245. 

Whig  Alliance,  290,  293,  296. 
Yelverton,  29,  68,  133. 


INDEX  TO  SPEECHES 

Henry  Flood: 

Attack  on  Lord  Townsend  and  his  mercenaries,  17. 
Defense  of  Flood's  course  under  Harcourt  (reply  to  Grat- 

tan),  27. 
Four  extracts  from  speech  on  Simple  Repeal,  32. 
Defense  of  the  Volunteers,  38. 

Henry  Grattan: 

Denunciation  of  the  Perpetual  Mutiny  Bill,  62. 

Tribute  to  Volunteers  and  threat  to  use  them,  65. 

Three  extracts  from  speech  on  the  Declaration  of  Rights, 

59,  69,  70. 
Attack  on  Pitt's  Commercial  Propositions,  73. 
Attack  on  government's  corrupt  pension  list,  76. 
Extract  from  speech  on  the  tithe  evil,  79. 
Plea  in  Irish  parliament  for  Catholic  rights,  80,  85.^ 
PhiHppic  against  Westmoreland's  system  of  corruption,  89. 
Seven    extracts    from    speeches    denouncing    corruption, 

91-93. 
Speech  against  the  sale  of  peerages,  94,  95. 
Protest  against  suspension  of  habeas  corpus,  97. 
Protest  against  disarming  of  Irishmen  by  General  Lake,  98. 
Three  extracts  from  speeches  against  the  Union,  103-105, 

107. 
Philippic  against  Isaac  Corry,  106. 

Plea  for  Catholic  Emancipation  (London  parliament),  110. 
Philippic  against  Flood,  119. 
Tribute  to  Dr.  Kirwan,  121, 
Tribute  to  Charlemont,  122. 

John  Philpot  Curran: 

His  denunciation  of  corruption  in  parliament,  134. 
Tribute  to  the  Volunteers,  138. 
Spirit  of  the  British  law  invoked,  139. 
Extract  from  defense  of  Finnerty,  143. 
Word  picture  of  Ireland's  misery,  144. 
Denunciation  of  O'Brien,  the  informer,  145. 
Extract  from  his  defense  of  the  Sheares,  147,  148, 
Denunciation  of  Reynolds,  the  informer,  150. 
Word  picture  of  the  death  of  Orr,  163. 
Tribute  to  Lord  Avonmore,  164. 
Word  picture  of  lustful  conqueror,  161. 
Ridicule  of  Dr.  Duigenan,  the  bigot,  166. 
526 


INDEX  537 


Lord  Plunkett  : 

Protest  against  destroying  liberty  of  Irish  press,  177. 

Denunciation  of  misgovernment  in  Ireland,  183. 

Six  extracts  from  his  philippics  against  the  Union,  183-189. 

Denunciation  of  Castlereagh,  201. 

Denunciation  of  Cornwallis'  election  tour  for  the  Union, 
202. 
Robert  Emmet: 

His  speech  from  the  dock,  230. 
Daniel  O'Connell: 

Call  to  arms  for  the  emancipation  fight,  250. 

Denunciation  of  the  Securities  in  Emancipation  bill,  252. 

Reply  to  Councillor  Bellew,  255. 

Denunciation  of  religious  bigotry,  260. 

Tribute  to  the  Protestant  patriots  of  Ireland,  261. 

Appeal  for  the  support  of  Irish  industries,  262. 

Appeal  for  unity  of  action  among  friends  of  emancipation, 
265. 

Tribute  to  Grattan's  memory,  269. 

Appeal  to  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  Celt,  274. 

Denunciation  of  EngHsh  ingratitude,  276. 

Reply  to  the  Marquis  of  Anglesea,  281. 

Denunciation  of  the  Tories,  291. 

Appeal  to  the  English  in  Liverpool,  294. 

Protest  against  the  slandering  of  Ireland,  295. 

^'Ireland  again  is  free"  (Repeal  speech),  297. 

Reply  to  the  English  threat  of  force,  303. 

Defiant  challenge  to  Peel,  306. 

Appeal  at  Mullaghrast,  308. 

Tribute  to  the  spirit  of  Kildare,  309. 

Denunciation  of  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  314. 

Denunciation  of  Lord  Gower,  324. 

Thomas  Francis  Meagher: 

Declaration  of  war  on  the  Union,  334. 

His  appeal  to  the  sword,  ZZ7. 

"Liberty  worth  fighting  for,"  341. 

Denunciation  of  the  Whigs  and  bigots  at  Waterford,  343. 

Four  extracts  from  revolutionary  speeches  on  French 
Revolution  of  1848,  344. 

Denunciation  of  inaction  at  Limerick,  349. 

Jhree  extracts  from  great  speech  on  Slievenamon  Moun- 
tain, 354. 

His  speech  from  the  dock,  359. 

His  denunciation  of  the  lords,  364. 

On  the  imprisonment  of  Smith  O'Brien,  364,  365. 

Lyrical  tribute  to  Swiss  liberty,  366. 

Extract  from  his  "Spirit  of  Liberty,"  367. 

Word  picture  of  the  starving  at  Skibbereen,  368. 


528  INDEX 

Thomas  Francis  Meagher — Continued. 

Swiss  spirit  contrasted  with  Irish  docility,  369. 

Word  picture  of  the  famine,  370. 

Word  picture  of  the  consummation  of  the  Union,  371. 

Isaac  Butt: 

Protest  against  military  display  at  Fenian  trials,  388. 

Defense  of  Luby — "Liberty  worth  a  drop  of  blood,"  389. 

Defense  of  the  Fenians,  391. 

Denunciation  of  the  court  proceedings  in  Fenian  trial,  392. 

Defense  of  Burke — attack  on  government's  honesty,  393. 

Tribute  to  the  Fenian's  character,  400. 

Word  picture  of  the  Cabra  amnesty  meeting,  402. 

His  explanation  of  his  conversion  to  patriotism,  405. 

Word  picture  of  the  home-breaking  of  the  emigrant,  416. 

A  plea  for  an  evicted  peasant's  home,  421. 

His  appeal  to  the  Irish  patriots  of  the  future,  422. 

Charles  Stewart  Parnell: 

Appeal  to  the  Irish  in  England  (Liverpool),  437. 

The  "Tread  on  English  toes"  speech  (Manchester),  441. 

"Keep  a  firm  grip  upon  your  homesteads"  (Westport),  448. 

Appeal  for  famine  sufferers  (New  York),  452. 

Sarsfield's  dying  lament  (Cleveland),  453. 

*'The  Landlords  must  go"  (St.  Louis),  453. 

The  Irish  Coercion  act  (St.  Louis),  454. 

The  Boycott  speech  (Ennis),  458. 

Attack  on  Gladstone  (Leeds,  1881),  466. 

"One  plank.  National  Independence"  (Dublin),  480. 

"Legislate  for  Ireland  or  not  at  all"  (Dublin),  481. 

"Ireland  will  knock  with  a  mailed  hand"  (Dublin),  483. 

Serving  notice  on  England  (House  of  Commons),  488. 


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